Tainted Souls
by Kammyh
Summary: Ianto is finally back, how will he cope with the new chance offered to him? How will Torchwood and the rest of the universe do it? CoE fix-it. Donna fix-it. Sequel to Eclipse on the Lost Lovers. JANTO
1. Remember

Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue, bring Ianto back to Jack first.

Warnings: Spoilers for almost everything except novels and comics. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, but I got my usual beta-testing by SOY. Before this, you should read Eclipse on the Lost Lovers, but I think you can easily guess what happened along the way. The story will turn crossover from chapter 4 with the introduction of Dr Who situations and characters not included in the basic Torchwood storyline, but the entire story will stay Torchwoodverse. No Jack Harkness got harmed during the writing of _this_ chapter.

**Remember**

The night was cold, silent and completely dark. The sky was a black curtain empty of stars, and without the few working lights at the sides of the road, it would have been almost impossible to walk around the streets at such late hour in the night.

Jack had no idea why he had waited this long to come here, but now no matter what the hour was, he had to do this. It was true that they still had a week, but he had kept himself shielded from reality too much and too long, and it had finally come the time for him to confront the one woman he had probably hurt the most with his continuous running-away charade.

He _had_ to confront her now, before someone could come and help him find excuses to delay something he was supposed to have done not just three months prior to this evening, but way before that. Way before that damn day of four years before.

Even if he still felt skittish about the final confrontation, he knew that he had at least to give her enough time to elaborate the same information that had kept him on his toes for the last three months. After all his attempts to stay away from her house, he knew he owned her that much.

He looked at his mobile and sighed: it was 10:15 PM already. A pretty bad time to come unannounced in a house with two young children; Jack cursed himself, wondering what had kept him away so long that it ended up on a matter of '_do it now or never_'.

Oh yeah: good old guilt.

A word that had marked his life in more ways than one would think possible: guilt for letting Grey's hand go, guilt for putting people in danger through his irresponsible cons, guilt from coming back to life when others didn't, guilt about appearing young while his friends and lovers kept getting old, guilt from the wrong decisions he made, guilt for the blood he had to spill, guilt for the truths he couldn't tell.

Jack checked once again the address to be certain he was finally in front of the right house, and felt a little more relieved seeing the lights inside one of the rooms at ground floor. Maybe he would be unwelcome, but at least he didn't wake them up in the middle of the night. That _had_ to count as a plus, didn't it?

He thought about ringing the doorbell for a moment, but after a more attentive consideration he chose to simply knock on the door and hope that someone would hear it, since he wasn't certain if the kids were still awake or not.

After a few moments of confused noise and loud chattering in a mix of English and Welsh from inside the house, finally someone opened the door, and he found himself staring into the suspicious eyes of Rhiannon Davies.

*** Three months before ***

Jack woke up from a nap he didn't remember taking, and tried to open his eyes to take in his still blurred surroundings. Even though he felt confused and completely out of sorts, he realised all too soon that he was inside a tent: he knew this couldn't be good. After all the last time he went camping, he and his co-workers had ended up almost being cannibalized.

A sharp pain stabbed his chest as soon as the memory crossed his mind, bringing forward way more recent events.

His co-workers. All except Gwen were now dead. His brave and gentle lover included.

All of sudden he had no desire to get up at all.

He was rudely dragged back from his dazed reverie by a light rustling noise, like the one of a material being moved, suddenly followed by a way louder series of indistinct sounds.

"Rhys, he's awake!" Gwen's voice seemed nearby, but he was much too confused to place where she actually was at the moment, so he simply waited where he was, hoping that she would willingly stop making his head throb with her yells. "Jack! Oh my God Rhys! Jack's awake!"

A strong arm encircled his shoulders and Jack felt someone trying to help him in a sitting position. He tried to keep his head straight, but the only thing he could manage was resting it on the nearest available surface: Rhys's shoulder.

"You're fine, mate?" Rhys asked in a much softer tone than Gwen's yells, giving him a light slap on the cheek. "Gwen, a glass of water 'ere."

Jack heard someone scrambling around, moving pans, crashing glass and bouncing against plastic, until silence reigned again and he saw Gwen's legs approaching again with the corner of his eyes. After a moment, a glass of water was placed in front of him, lingering on his lips.

He grimaced at the cold wetness and tried to get away from the offending liquid, symbol of a life that seemed to keep mocking him wherever he went, but Rhys shifted him well enough to make him drink some of it anyway, with the practice of a perfectly trained father.

Despite his initial protests, the cold water actually cleared Jack's mind a little bit, and he felt good enough to try sitting up by himself again.

"Thanks." He muttered grumpily, holding his head with his hand.

"What happened, Jack?" Gwen knelt down in front of him, her big green eyes staring at him worried. "Where's Ianto? Has he already gotten back home with the others?"

Jack stared at her in disbelief. What the heck was she talking about?

"Gwen, Ianto's dead."

Contrary to every expectation, Gwen simply smiled at him.

"Well yes, at the moment… but you _know_ that he won't stay that way for much longer. Anyhow, I was talking about the other Ianto, the one from the future."

His mouth fell open, but each time he tried to articulate something it seemed inappropriate or trivial, so in the end he simply shut it. Gwen reached for his cheek and stroked it, now sincerely concerned.

"You alright, Jack? It's not like you not babbling about." She cooed, trying to go for humour to hide her worry. "Future Ianto, remember? Big turtle aliens, my look-alike not speaking Welsh, black Owen, and cheeky siblings?"

Jack's eyes stared at her without giving any sign of recognizing what she was talking about. It was like he not only did not _remember_, but also like he couldn't _make any sense_ out of what she was talking about. Gwen watched him intently for a while, hoping to get some reaction, but she realized soon that everything was in vain. She nodded, tightening her lips in her trademark '_I'm-trying-to-reassure-you'_ smile, and took one of his arms tight in hers, motioning for Rhys to do the same with the other.

"Ok, love." She said, talking slowly. "Nothing to worry about, now. We'll get you to the nearest hospital. You won't have to worry about a single thing."

The restriction and the sudden loss of the leading role finally got some reaction out of Jack.

"Let me get this straight: _you_ talk about meeting a dead man and _I_ need to get myself checked up in a hospital. Who's the one sounding mental here?" Jack argued, trying to free himself without much luck.

"The alternative is me taking a blood sample out of you, would you like that?" She quickly replied deadly serious.

Jack glared at Gwen's determinate stare for a long time, then grimaced and eventually snarled at her.

"Lead the way."

They managed to get him inside the minivan and then set out for the hospital. As soon as Gwen finished calling the police, along with some other trusted people to clean up the remains of their camp and the attempted alien invasion Jack didn't remember happening, she finally relaxed at his side on the back seat of the car, smiling reassuringly at him. The captain answered with an angry look and simply kept sulking.

"Why are we using this minivan?" He snapped at her before she could start some of her reassuring tales. "We've got a completely new SUV back in Cardiff."

"We had weapons with us." She explained slowly and calmly. "Lots of. There wasn't enough space for them and us on the SUV."

"We are three." Jack complained with a hint of challenge, making Gwen's seraphic smile waver a bit.

"We were not three, Jack. There were five of us. You, me, black Owen, snarky sister and Ianto. Rhys went ahead with the snarky brother to build a device we needed in order to defeat them, but all the other weapons were with us."

Jack searched in his memory to find something vaguely similar to what Gwen was describing, but everything about the day before and that morning was blank. He shook his head and his best friend put her hand on his shoulder trying to comfort him.

"You think it's the same thing that made you forget me that time?" Rhys took his chance to ask his wife from the driver's seat. Gwen grimaced unsure.

"Hope is not. We never found out what it was in the end, and we all ended up forgetting two whole days." She said before turning to her boss. "Jack, you sure you remember absolutely nothing? Not even how you felt? You've been pretty shocked by Ianto's coming back, that _must_ ring a bell."

"Last thing I remember was the graveyard." Jack said uncertain. "My heart breaking, looking at his tombstone. Then… I remember feeling warmth around me. Something… that made me believe that everything would turn out ok in the end. After that… just a dull pain, atrocious, worst I ever had. And despair. Then the warmness came again and everything else disappeared. Then I simply woke up."

"Pain, you say? Maybe you died?" Gwen guessed, sounding a little bit too hopeful for the subject at hand.

"It was worse than dying." Jack said looking straight in her eyes, not at all bothered by the casual ways everyone kept referring to his deaths. "It was like Thames House all over again."

Gwen smiled awkwardly. "So… Maybe you thought Ianto was dead again? But in the end he wasn't, and that reassured you."

Jack considered her words and shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

He mulled over the various things Gwen had told him since he'd woken up and considered how he felt. Dizziness aside, he could finally say that he was fine, even though thinking back, he remembered having been so desperate back at the graveyard that he was almost feeling sick.

The graveyard… The last thing he remembered was… hearing Ianto's voice? It sounded like that, now that he tried to remember, searching desperately for the exact point his memories had vanished. So, Gwen wasn't the crazy one, she actually had a point. Could it be that…

"Gwen, tell me the truth. You reckon they retconned me?"

She shuddered, but couldn't even pretend a forced smile this time. She simply swallowed and nodded at him. They stared at each other for a long time, before both turned their attention to the road, until the minivan eventually stopped.

"We're 'ere." Rhys announced. "You get going, I'll park the minivan."

Jack and Gwen sighed and then walked out the car to go and use up a bit of their newly restored authority. After they finally managed to get a nurse take Jack's blood sample and send it to the laboratories for an immediate analysis, they were left waiting for what it seemed like forever, until finally a young medic approached them.

"You're the members of Torchwood Cardiff, aren't you? The ones with the blood sample?"

They both nodded and approached the man, hoping and dreading at the same time that he finally had the much wanted results.

"Yeah, sorry to be a bother. We still don't have a doctor of our own so…" Gwen trailed off as the medic simply nodded to her.

"The nurse told me you were searching for a particular compound. Compound…"

"Compound B67," Jack supplied.

"Yeah. Well, we didn't find it in the blood sample we took actually." Jack and Gwen's faces fell at his words. "But we found something that we believe to be a derivative of that compound. Is quite original, if we discover that to be true, I must tell you that."

"A derivative?" Jack asked, astonished. "Does it mean that it has the same properties of the original?"

"Compound B67 is classified, so… You tell me, Captain Harkness. We have no way to verify that for sure, but being a derivative I'm fairly certain that the results are almost identical. We analyzed the data and cross-referenced the results with similar modifications in similar molecules. Whatever your compound does, this one is definitely a less aggressive version of the original and I would also say a little more stable and permanent one."

Unfortunately, there wasn't much more that the medic could do for them, even though he seemed competent enough to be kept on watch in case of a future recruitment. They simply thanked him and disappeared back to Rhys and the minivan, both still mulling over the news and making a mental note to call Martha later on for a deeper insight consultation.

The thought to actually let the young medic in Torchwood only stayed in their minds few seconds before they crossed it out. They had too much to deal with at the moment.

"So," Jack said after they got inside the car and briefed quickly Rhys on the recent discoveries. "To do a retcon-wise interpretation of what the doctor said, this particular derivative instead of wiping out everything giving a slight chance of recovery, could be a permanent removal of facts and events with the additional note that you can't prevent yourself from knowing that something was supposed to be there. Great. Simply perfect."

"I think it was sweet of him." Gwen countered warmly.

Jack raised an eyebrow at her suspiciously, waiting for an explanation.

"Well, they _were_ secretive about something, maybe you found out what it was eventually. He _needed_ to erase that, but at the same time he didn't want to take away from you the love you shared. Even though he was here only for a small time, he _really_ managed to bring you back, Jack."

Silence fell among them as he pondered what she had told him, letting Rhys take the main road and drive them through the long ride back to Cardiff.

"How was he?" Jack asked after a long time.

Gwen didn't need explanation for that question so out of the blue, since it was quite obvious who her friend was referring to.

"Ianto." She answered, smiling at him. "He was simply Ianto. He got you back from the bottom as if work of magic, just being his mysterious and charming self."

A knowing smirk graced his lips, as he considered how Ianto's magic could work. Truth to be told he didn't _feel_ like he had sex recently, but his tired muscles and the dull calmness all over himself made him rather certain that they had been at least fooling around. And he had drunk Ianto's coffee. He was _sure_ he could feel the orgasmic sensation his lover's coffee had on him still lingering.

Maybe he had been wrong about the drug. Compared to the normal retcon, he definitely liked this new version better, even without the chance to recover what he had lost.

"You said he will be back?"

"Our Ianto will be, yes. In three months." Gwen confirmed, but had to take a deep breath before continuing. "Ianto said it will be a big deal to take in for everyone, and that he will need our help. Didn't say why though."

Jack smirked bitterly at her, easily guessing what the problem was going to be.

"It's awkward being back again when you thought you had already crossed the line forever, Gwen, and I can talk from experience. At least the hub is as it was, that could help him not to feel like four years passed."

"Still four years _have passed_ Jack, and that hub's a _grave_. We _need_ to make it alive again. He said so himself."

Jack looked at her, never feeling more tired. "And how do we do that?"

Gwen smiled at him and tilted her head to the side, offering her simple solution. "We live and work in there, especially now that the rift is slowly becoming active again. It will be good for Ianto to know his work is still waiting for him, as unpredictable as he had always loved it. As much as he will certainly appreciate the strength his friends, family and boyfriend will provide."

Jack broke eye contact with her to glance uninterested at a distant point far across the road and frowned.

His boyfriend.

Sometimes he found himself thinking about Ianto as his boyfriend, but how much was it fair to Ianto if he considered himself his boyfriend now, even though he had never told him it was ok give a name to what they were? He knew his lover reasonably thought of himself as such, but how was he going to react at being called like that by Jack himself once back to the living?

It wasn't even a question, actually. He would believe he pitied him. And it would be pity also telling him he loved him, because Jack had never had the courage to say those stupid three words when he was alive, and he doubted Ianto would acknowledge what they had told each other at the House of Dead if by chance he remembered it.

His last memories would have been Jack telling him he was going to die like an ugly dog, that he would watch him die and go on with his life and that he didn't think Ianto was dependable enough to listen to his secrets. He would have the certainty that he had just been scraping the surface. Maybe that was the meaning of his lover's entire drama about couples… He had kept pointing it out because he wanted him to acknowledge they were one, the same way Jack had vaguely acknowledged that they were together back at the hospital, when they were retrieving the hitchhiker.

He hadn't even understood that Ianto wanted him to say out loud that they _were_ a couple, despite their rough beginning, despite Torchwood and despite everything and everyone. He knew Ianto would have never imposed himself, that he would have never dared to ask. Ianto _needed_ Jack to say it was ok, because not only was it hard for him admit his falling for a man, but also because officially they were still boss and underling, leader and part-time shag.

It was Jack's place to set the restrictions of their relationship, and he had failed him.

However, despite the loss of material memory, he was certain he remembered he had felt Ianto's love and his warmth, so there _had_ to be still hope for the two of them. He just needed to figure out how they were going to go from the present mess to there.

"You worried? Let me help you with this, Jack. Rhys can join too if he wants." Gwen's mother hen expression faded away for a few seconds as she glared at her husband for support. Rhys saw that with the corner of his eye and obviously panicked, ending up stuttering on words.

"P-part time's fine with me. Considering Anwen, I-I mean. She needs at least a parent that can stay with her, but every time you need help you can count on me!"

The ghost of a smile appeared on Jack's lips and he thanked them before losing himself again in his thoughts, hoping to remember something more about the last 24 hours. He stared at nowhere for a long time, until he finally realized he had left out an important matter among all the things Gwen had told him.

"Shit, we'll have to tell Rhiannon."

Gwen's eyes widened and she swallowed, Rhys paled visibly and Jack slumped deeper on his seat, boneless , while the silence reigned in the car for the rest of their trip back to Cardiff.

* **Back to the present ***

"No gentleman shows up at this hour in a house with two kids sleeping! Don't you dare ring and get _lost_! We buy nothin'."

Rhiannon was already closing the door when Jack leaped over and grabbed the knob to keep it open. The glare she threw at him almost made him completely lose the grip.

"I just need a moment of your time, it's important." Jack tried to explain quickly in order to prevent her reactions. "And yes, I _do_ realise it's late, in every possible meaning, but I was too much of a coward to do this before."

He noticed her glare melting away as she raised an enquiring eyebrow at him. He eventually let the handle go, hoping that he could trust her enough to not shut him out. Jack not only knew that Rhiannon's will to listen to him didn't mean he was already in a safe zone, but also that his only hope was that the sister was less calculative than her brother.

Last time he had found himself in the same situation with Ianto, as soon as he had let the knob go, his extremely irate lover had smiled mischievously at him and closed the door back in his face. Luckily, Rhiannon had no reason to be angry at him _yet_, and the small hint of curiosity in her eyes made him hope for a good outcome of the visit. She opened the door a little wider, but she still didn't step aside, regarding his suspiciously.

"You say who you are fist. And know that my husband went to get the rifle. If you want to try something funny, you chose the wrong family, mate."

Jack swallowed, reasonably suspecting that his name wasn't in the Davies's good list to begin with, and it would probably rise up to the top bad ones the moment he would tell them the reason for his visit.

"I'm captain Jack Harkness-"

"You're police!?" She interrupted him with a frown, closing the door a bit more. "We want nothin' to do with you after-"

"I'm no police!" Jack retorted, trying to stay calm and cursing himself for always beginning things the wrong way with all the Jones he met from this particular family. "And I don't want anything to do with them either for your same reasons!"

Contrary to his previous assumption, that actually made Rhiannon's anger utterly deflate. She looked at him puzzled and a bit hurt, as she swallowed, fearing the answer her question could get.

"What d'you mean?"

"I'm Jack, Ianto's boss… Ianto's boyfriend."

"Oh." She whispered, letting the door knob go, as her arms fell to her sides. "Little late for gettin' and givin' condolences you are."

"I-I know." He said sadly and lowered his eyes. "May I come in?"

Rhiannon nodded and moved aside, gesturing him to go inside the kitchen. Once he got there he found Johnny glaring at him suspiciously. _Rifle-less_. Rhiannon had fooled him well; he knew it had to run in the family.

As soon as the woman joined them in the kitchen, Johnny's stare fixed on his wife.

"What does this mean, Rhia? Who the fuck is the bloke!?"

"Don't shout! The kids are in bed!" She shouted, glaring at him severely. "And keep quiet, he's Ianto's bloke, not mine!"

Silence reigned for a few seconds, while Johnny's stare moved back to Jack, eyeing him distrustfully and scanning him from head to toe. In the Welshmen head lots of _not-so-nice_ definitions passed for the captain: the faggot who fucked his secretary, the coward without the guts to make an appearance at Ianto's funeral, the bastard responsible for Ianto's death –because leaders are there to take the blame.

Eventually, he found something he believed proper enough to say.

"You're so old you could be his father… But he always liked older, even girlfriends."

Jack snorted, but realized after his experience with Rhys that he had got off lightly. Rhiannon on the other hand shook her head, and glared at them both.

"Be quiet I said, and sit down! Both of you!"

However when all of them were seated, no one had the daring to be the first to talk. In the end Rhiannon glanced nonchalantly at Jack, her full lips barely visible behind her hands and pursed in concentration.

"So… What've you done in these four years? You've been so quick disappearing that you didn't even make it to his funeral." Her stare became more piercing with each sentence, like she was consciously building up a crescendo of guilt to throw at him. "We've never seen you. Barely knew who you were."

Trust a Jones not to take it from afar and score nevertheless. Jack took a deep breath and stared at a random point in Rhiannon's general direction, not trusting himself to actually look at her in the eyes.

"I've…travelled the Earth to find a way to have him back, but when I managed to get him, well… things didn't go as planned. I failed even my own suicide. I fled everywhere and nowhere in particular. Came back, went to America a couple of times… I thought I was getting better, turns out I really wasn't."

Jack realized that the even tone he had managed through the story was wavering, so he had to stop in order to let the lump constricting his throat shrink enough to let him actually explain his visit. Rhiannon noticed his moment of pain and reached for his hand, patting it comfortingly.

"So you came back?" She smiled, taking in Jack's appearance. "You look a fairly decent though. I s'ppose."

"Well, that's the reason I came here actually." Jack said in a whisper, taking a deep breath. "Gwen and Ianto told you that we deal with aliens and strange things, and this is what Torchwood is trying to do even now. I can't offer many details, because that part of my memory has been erased, but something came up."

"But what I can tell you," He continued, finally focussing straight on Rhiannon's eyes. "Is that Ianto will come back soon. A future version of him came to help us dealing with some aliens and he said that in less than a week he is going to be revived."

"Even admitting that this is true…" She argued, not actually knowing what to make of Jack's predicament. "You say you have no memories, how can you be sure of this?"

"Gwen met him and I saw a scrap of footage that hasn't been deleted with the rest. He looked a bit older and had a couple of grey hairs… But he _was_ Ianto. She said we also tested him and he proved to be the real one. There are still the results on the logs. And…" Jack trailed off, uncertain if he wanted or not share the last bit of information with the Davies.

"And?" Johnny urged him to go on.

"And I-I…" Jack sighed and decided to let out everything in a single rush, no matter how crazy it sounded. "I know you can call me weird, but…even though I don't remember the _facts_ and the _people_, I remember how I felt in those 24 hours with him. And God, I felt good."

Rhiannon and Johnny raised their eyebrows at him, but it took Jack some time to realize what the others' stares meant. When it clicked he simply rolled his eyes and scowled at them. "Not that! I just felt loved. Loved the way he loved me."

"Look, your story is… incredible." Johnny said, trying to be a little bit more considerate in his choice of words this time. "But, you know, after four years you still didn't get over his death… Don't you think that -just maybe- your friend made everything up just to make you happy? Just a suggestion 'ere, mate. Don't take it wrong."

"I _am_ sure. Even thought she had faked all the records at the base, it wouldn't explain the way I feel."

"Maybe you only convinced yourself. Pain can do that." Rhiannon offered tenderly, but Jack simply stood up, determination flaring in his eyes.

"Look, I'm not here for counselling. I just wanted to let you know this beforehand, because things will be hell for Ianto when he wakes up. If he's not going to have his family's support, I need to know it beforehand. I don't want to make things too hard on him when he will be asking for you."

"Don't be stupid, mate!" Johnny roared, slamming his hands on the table and getting on his feet to level with Jack's eyes. "Of course he has our support! We need no time to think that over! We're the only family he's got, for God's sake! If he really comes back, it's just how things _have_ to be: for him to be part of his own family again!"

It took all Jack's strength to not openly comment how homoerotic the situation was getting. He would need some private time to think about how these situations happened with the Welshmen. Always with the Welshmen.

Focusing back on the matter at hand, Jack took a moment to look closely at Johnny and then at Rhiannon. In their eyes he could see the same hurt he was feeling. Since more or less they knew about Torchwood, he had momentarily forgotten that they were just ordinary civilians. It was obvious that they did not dare to hope having Ianto back. Still, they were a family that was willing to stay as such, and he only had to hope that they would keep that in mind even in front of the actual deed.

He knew too well what being refused by your own family meant, and he would never wish it to his lover.

"Thank you."

Rhiannon stared concernedly at him and pressed her lips tight together, like she was struggling to say something, but she didn't know how to formulate it. Eventually she simply stood up and walked steadily next to Jack, gripping strongly his arm with her hand.

"I want you to call me when you go to get him. No matter the hour, just call me."

Jack smirked bitterly at her. "Why? Because families stick together?"

She wetted her lips and then nodded. "Yeah. Because you're part of this family too if you want to."

He looked at her puzzled, not understanding the meaning behind those words.

"Whether Ianto comes back or not," Rhiannon said slowly. "A member of my family's going to need me when it happens… Or not happens for what that matter."

Jack let her words sunk in, fretting at the thought of letting himself fall for the illusion of belonging to a proper family again. Hope was painful for him, and Ianto had been a quite vivid reminder of it.

"I thought you hated me." He tried to reason, frowning at her.

"Can't like the one who stole my brother now, can I?" Jack found himself laughing at the words of the stubborn woman. "And four years is a long time. Never been said we deny help when needed."

"I'm no good with families." He argued, not having the slightest idea of how to deal with Rhiannon's offering considering his current situation with Ianto.

"No need to be, we're good enough. Just follow the lead."

Again Jack had to stifle a laugh, and this time Rhiannon joined too, her eyes shining in delight as she closed up the space between them even more.

"Now" Rhiannon stated, tightening her grip on Jack's arm and leading him towards the couch. "First things first: material needs. You sleep here tonight, not a word about it. Tomorrow, you'll have a good home-cooked breakfast, and only when I'm sure you are fine and well rested you're free to go."

"Actually-" Jack tried to argue, but Johnny patted him on the shoulder to stop him and shook his head.

"Don't try that, mate. Never worked." Then he pointed upstairs and made sign to Jack to follow him. "Get a blanket or you'll be freezin' down 'ere."

Jack gave a last appreciative look at Rhiannon and then followed Johnny upstairs. He ended up in what he supposed to be their bedroom, so he politely leaned on the wall right next to the entrance, waiting for Johnny to finish rummaging inside the wardrobe to get the blanket.

"You've better not to try funny things with me, mate." The man said, eyeing suspiciously Jack, who was so amused by Johnny's random reaction that he barely felt offended at all.

"Look, sorry to crush your hopes, but there's only one person in this house that could be my type and I'm not talking about you."

"What d'you mean?" Johnny asked warily, offering him the blanket to take.

"Rhiannon has really a lot of my Ianto," Jack teased. "If she and I were free, I wouldn't mind hitting on her, you know."

"You!" Johnny accused him, totally shocked. "You play for both teams!"

Jack _had_ to smirk one of his most flippant smiles at that. "Actually, you name a team and I play for it."

He turned away from Johnny, who was still staring at him with his mouth hanging open, winked at him and went back inside the kitchen to meet up again with Rhiannon.

Oh, yes. This family thing was already going on pretty well.


	2. Back to life

Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

Warnings: Spoilers for almost everything except novels and comics. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, but I got my usual beta-testing by SOY. No Ianto Jones got harmed during the writing of _this_ chapter.

**Back to life**

The following morning Jack was awakened by small, delicate and extremely cold hands, prodding curiously at his face. He opened one eye to check his surroundings and he found a little blond girl retreating from him. She drew back even more when he opened the other eye and sat up, smiling warmly at her.

"Good morning, young lady. You must be Mica."

The ten years old girl blushed and nodded, looking curiously at him through long eyelashes.

"Do not harass uncle Jack, Mica. Go 'n' wash your hands!" Rhiannon promptly interrupted as she joined them.

Jack felt a sting of pain at the way he had been called, his thoughts going immediately to his grandson even though he knew he had never been a real uncle to him to begin with. However he still managed to control his feelings well enough to look enquiringly at the woman.

"We don't have an uncle Jack." The girl argued, voicing more or less the same thoughts he'd had.

"He's your uncle Ianto's boyfriend." Rhiannon explained to both of them condescendingly, glaring at Jack's surprised stare and showing her daughter out in the general direction of the bathroom. "That makes him uncle Jack, doesn't it?"

Jack could swear he heard the little girl squeal and giggle as she ran up the stairs, undoubtedly to share the news with her brother, and not to wash her hands like her mother had told her to.

"Sorry 'bout that. Kids."

He stifled a laugh, realizing that he was doing it a lot around Rhiannon. He wondered for a moment why he hadn't popped up at her door sooner, but he had to admit that without the promise to have Ianto back in a short while, the family resemblance would have simply destroyed him further instead of amusing him.

"Had a couple myself, I know what you mean." He said, and to avoid further questions he stood up to help Rhiannon setting the table for breakfast. "Let me be of some help."

She nodded and left him to arrange the dishes and cups she had taken out, moving back near the stove to check on the breakfast.

"You know," She said not much after, attempting some small talk. "Johnny told me about the conversation you two had before bedtime."

Her voice was completely plain, not giving a single hint of her opinion on the matter. Even considering that aspect of her character, Jack couldn't stop comparing the woman to her brother.

"Don't worry, I won't try anything with a married woman." Jack defended himself, hoping that his charming smile could let him get away with everything he was accused of even though Rhiannon wasn't actually looking at him.

"I mean, is nice that you consider yourself still taken after all these years." She explained plainly, looking at him with the corner of her eye to check his reactions.

Jack's jaw fell open and he stared at her, processing slowly the implications of her words. He hadn't actually noticed that lately he had been assuming that he and Ianto would be back together once he was resuscitated.

"I- Well…" He bent down his head and focused back on his task, trying to hide his insecurities. "I didn't consider myself taken for a long time if I have to tell the truth. But… If there's even a slight chance that Ianto returns, I'll do everything I can to have him back at my side. In all possible meanings."

Rhiannon smiled at him. "He will appreciate that, I'm sure of it. Now, you go 'n refresh yourself a bit, and then breakfast, old man. Got my telephone number written on a piece of paper ready for you to pick up before you go."

And with those final words she shooed him away with a satisfied smirk.

***Six days later, 3:27 AM***

"Can't resurrections take place at normal hours under the sunlight?" Rhiannon said as a way of greeting to Jack and Gwen. "Bloody graveyards give me the chills."

Gwen smiled up at her. "Hello to you too, Rhi. Long time no see."

Rhiannon simply nodded and closed her coat tighter around her.

"Hi, Rhia. Sorry for the late call." Jack mumbled, his attention completely focused on the strange device he was holding. It was similar to a box with tentacles, with beeping lights on the top and a small, dead display that covered almost a whole side of it. The captain kept moving the appendages at different angles, but apparently without effectively lighting up the small monitor.

"We had no idea how Ianto was going to come back to us," Gwen explained to her, shrugging uncomfortably. "We settled cameras around here just in case, but they didn't show anything unusual even if we noticed a spike of energy in the area. It traced back exactly here-"

"But the signal disappeared about thirty minutes ago." Jack continued, still busying himself with the box. "And we can't get it back."

"So… What are you doing?" Rhiannon asked with a frown.

"_I_ personally was trying to convince Jack to at least remove the earth over Ianto's coffin, so the rescue would be quicker at the next spike. You know, since the signal boosted right over his tomb, there are reasonably more chances that he could actually come out from here… Still, Jack wanted you here first."

Truth to be told, Rhiannon felt a twinge of pain herself at the suggestion, having still clear in her mind the picture of her beloved little brother, resting pale and unmoving in that very same coffin. Nevertheless she had always been a practical woman and without a doubt Gwen was right, so she simply took a deep breath and tried her best to steady her voice.

"Sounds the most logical thing to do to me. This obviously, if we are willing to go on with this madness."

Her answer shook Jack out of his concentration and he finally looked up at the two expectant Welshwomen. He took a deep breath and nodded, staring at them with an expression that couldn't be called in any other way but '_outnumbered_'. He took it over himself to take the shovel and dig the dark earth out of the way, leaving grudgingly the weird shaped box in Gwen's care.

When he had almost reached the coffin, he heard a thump coming from inside and then a cry that sounded suspiciously like his Ianto. They all hastened together to remove the remaining earth and force open the top, realising that it wouldn't took long for the man to die again by lack of oxygen.

Gwen quickly took out something similar to a gun from her pocket and with a click of the trigger she made the nails securing the lid disappear in thin air, leaving Jack and Rhiannon free to finally take it out of the way. As soon as the cover opened, Ianto threw instinctively his arms around the neck of the nearer of the three, who was accidentally his former lover.

No matter how much sure Jack had been that his man was going to come back to him, having Ianto back in his arms froze him to the core. Only when he realized that the dirty man clinging to him was shaking in fear and whimpering softly, he protectively closed his arms around his waist and firmly held him against him.

Ianto panicked getting a so familiar reaction from who he believed to be a stranger, but as soon as Jack's unique scent filled his nostrils, he relaxed again and tightened his grip on the man he himself, glad to be in his lost lover's familiar arms.

After that first moment of comfort though, what had happened slowly came back to him and he hastily freed himself from Jack's embrace to look around himself. The coffin, the fresh earth forming four walls around them, worms crawling all around and…

"Jack… Rhiannon…Gwen." He stated each name every time sounding more and more desperate rather than happy to see them, already dreading the confrontation. He swallowed and stared at each of them in turn with wide eyes. "Ok, from 1 to 10 how busted am I?"

The others' worried stares melted in a smile and they all sniggered at the light joke. Jack leaned dangerously in his personal space, and all Ianto's attention focused back on the captain.

"Let me see. You lied to your friend, lost your sister's car and left your lover alone for four long years." He told him in a fake disappointed scowl. "I should say pretty much over thirty."

Ianto swallowed down his guilt, but was rewarded by the saddest and loving smile Jack ever gave him. "Welcome back, Ianto. You have no idea how much you were missed."

Everyone was fighting the urge to jump on Ianto and hug him tight, but they also guessed it was a bit too early, since he still didn't seem to have gotten over his shock and confusion. It would have been unwise to suffocate him with hugs and questions, especially when they took into account the lost and scared expression on the Welshman's face and his still tearful eyes.

"But… How am I back?"

Jack's smile was the first to fade. "No idea. We hoped that _you_ might know... Do you remember anything weird or strange?"

"Nothing." Ianto answered uncertain, as panic took once again the best of him. "Me dying and then darkness. That's all."

Jack lowered his gaze and also Gwen and Rhiannon looked away from Ianto, a little bit ashamed with themselves for not having thought about an answer to give to him beforehand.

The following silence unfortunately didn't do much good to Ianto's nerves, since the dread for his unpredicted future and the horror for the possible meaning of the others' silence were already making him feel more than a bit uneasy.

He frantically searched around himself for anything unusual, peeked over the edge of the grave to be sure that there wasn't someone suspicious near and then checked behind his head in case his co-workers had managed to retrieve another Risen Mitten, but he was each time more terrified as his researches failed to produce results one after the other.

"But… How much have I got?"

"Be happy about that, love," Gwen said, trying to reassure him with a smile as she stopped her hand from darting forward to pat his hand. "As much as we know, you're in for the long haul."

Instead of feeling reassured, Ianto got even more scared than he already was, as doubts and suspects filled his panicked mind. He felt pretty much alive, but so had Owen when he had discovered he wasn't going to be dead again soon after they used the Risen Mitten on him. He wouldn't stand a half-life like the one his co-worker had been condemned to for a short while: it had been too painful to see. Living it himself wasn't an option.

He checked his own pulse and felt a little bit relieved noticing that his heart seemed to be beating regularly despite the extreme coldness of his skin to his own touch. He stared back at his friends and family. Certainly a lot of time had passed judging from the two women aged appearance, and despite being immortal also his lover looked touched deeply by the passing of time.

Much more aged than the girls, truth to be told... Had they really been just four years for the fixed captain? Was it somehow related to what had happened to him?

What had Jack and Gwen done now?

"And how much _do you know_ exactly?" Ianto barked to both his co-workers, unable to shake away the mistrust and the anger seeping through his voice.

"Calm down, all of you!" Rhiannon interrupted, after she had finally managed to get her voice back after the surprise of seeing her brother actually back among the livings. She knew that Ianto was far too emotional for his wellbeing and had a habit to say things he didn't mean when angered or in distress, so the best thing to do was simply shutting him up. "First of all, let's get out of here. Sitting on a coffin six feet underground will make anyone nervous."

Ianto suspicious glare now was on his sister too, but he knew better than to contradict her, so he unwillingly let Jack help him out from his own grave and followed them few feet away from the graves. When they were all sitting in an open space, Ianto stared expectantly at the others again.

"So, how much do you know?"

"Not much actually." Gwen said a little bit ashamed at their inability to find any clue on the matter despite their researches.

"You knew I was coming back," Ianto reasoned, finding increasingly more difficult to not shout at them. "And you knew it was _now_, how can it be '_not much_'!"

"That" She explained hesitantly, stealing glances at Jack, who had taken a seat next to Ianto. "That was a little bit of cheating on your side."

"_My_ side?" Ianto asked, sounding almost offended.

"Well, not you as in _you,_" She tried again, now a little more confident since her friend appeared to at least be willing to listen. "But in _you_ as your future self. You came here to help us with some aliens three months ago."

Ianto knit his eyebrows in disbelief. "Why on Earth would any Torchwood Three risk a temporal paradox for a bunch of aliens?"

"Because I-" Jack cut between them guiltily. "I kind of… dismantled it. More than once."

"How- I mean…Why?" Ianto asked surprised, his voice wavering.

"I quitted. Left Earth. Came back. Left Cardiff. Came back. Not much room for our organized organization in this, no matter how much Gwen tried to put something together by herself. Besides, the rift seemed to have closed down forever until a few months ago."

"Why?" Ianto repeated, dreading the answer now.

"Why did it close up?"

"Don't joke around, Jack. You know what I mean."

Jack smiled desolately at him and rested his hand on Ianto's one.

"Doesn't matter anymore, you're back. You're alive and we recently managed to rebuild Torchwood the way you knew it. We're back in action and… When you are ready your old job will be waiting for you. Nothing needs to change if you don't want to. Absolutely nothing."

They stared at each other a long time, but none of them dared to spoke, both realizing that Jack's words were referring to much more than just work.

"No more talking now, it's late ok?" Rhiannon said, uncertainly cutting between the two of them. "You stink like a dead man, little brother. You need washing, changing and resting."

She took out a small bag and left it in front of Ianto. "This should be enough for now. Nothing much: just some clothes, your favourite shampoo and shower gel, toothpaste and toothbrush, aftershave…"

"And you can stay with me at the hub until we find you a new flat." Jack offered hopeful, following Rhiannon's lead.

"Oh God" Ianto said, realizing something important only that moment. "I've got nothing left."

Jack's smile faded again and Gwen suddenly found the corner of her jacket really interesting. It was again Rhiannon the one that finally mustered enough courage to move next to her brother and encircle his shoulders, bringing him closer to her. Ianto flinched at the sudden source of warm, but didn't try to escape her hug.

"Don't be stupid, you've got _us_. We're more important that a few things that had to go, aren't we?"

Ianto nodded and finally let himself relax in his sister's arms. She let him place his head on her shoulder and rested hers over his.

"When the Government released your things to our care, the flat had to go and so did the car. You know how the neighbourhood is, that gorgeous black Audi would have ended up no better than your company car." Ianto winced in her arms, but she simply kissed his forehead tenderly and continued. "Those anyway were the only things gone, and the only part of your inheritance we actually used. Your money and most of your clothes and belongings are still untouched. We never had enough heart to throw everything away."

"You needed the money more than me though, why keep it stocked?" He asked unsurely, feeling deeply regretful to presumably have to take it back from her.

Rhiannon smiled at him and tightened her hold on him. "You should be happy, you dumb sod, now you can buy everything back and I'm in the safe knowledge that your bank account would barely cry."

Ianto raised an eyebrow at her and she simply shrugged. "Well, we had to check how much was there… God, Ianto, they certainly paid you well."

"They know we are not going to see the end of it." He deadpanned.

"Well, maybe you won't see the end of it anyway, but now you can use it for a little bit longer, can't you?"

He looked up at her, hesitation in his eyes. "Can I come home with you?"

Jack's jaw dropped open in surprise hearing the proposition, but Rhiannon came to his rescue before he could make a case of it.

"You can visit me whenever you want. We'll be all here for you… But right now you need to go back with Jack and let your man take care of you. Alright, you dumbass?"

Ianto glanced furtively at Jack, noticing his sad eyes filled with hurt. He tried to retreat more in his sister arms, but she let him go unmercifully and pushed him _not-too-gently_ towards Jack.

"Now, we all go to sleep." Rhiannon ordered. "No draining talking tonight, you three leave it for tomorrow. Have I been clear? Gwen, you want a lift?"

Gwen looked at her friends, worried about the uncertain aura surrounding the two. She knew that if someone could understand how reviving felt and what it did to someone, that person was Jack, so she only had to keep trusting him. Besides Rhiannon was right: soulful talking could wait until after a good night of sleep.

"Thanks, Rhia. I'll take your offer if you don't mind."

The two women left, glancing behind themselves to keep an eye on the two men for as long as they could, just in case they were suddenly needed again. Once alone with Jack, Ianto finally gathered enough courage to look again at his lover, guilt and doubts filling his eyes again.

"How was it for you?"

"Shouldn't we follow your sister advice?" Jack's voice was miserable and unsure, not certainly the one he would have expected from a man who had four years or more to make another life for himself.

"Jack…"

"Yeah, yeah…" Jack admitted, taking Ianto's hand in his own. "I'd like to settle a few things between us right now too, but we can't do that in a graveyard. Your sister was one hundred percent right on that. Let's go back to the hub, the SUV is near."

They walked in silence at a short distance, none of them daring to be the first to confront the other. As soon as they were inside and ready to take the road back to the bay though, Ianto yelped and stared at Jack puzzled.

"I had lost it! How did you manage to get the car back?"

Jack smirked, but kept his focus on driving the car. "I didn't get it back. I had one made from scratch around four months ago. I remade the SUV, the hub… I wanted everything back the way it was. Last time we went to America, I realized I was still running away. So I thought about the only thing that could have made me feel alive again, something that would make me stop running away."

"Torchwood?" Ianto said tentatively, not daring to hope that it was the wrong answer.

"You."

A tiny little fragment of warmth made it through Ianto's hearth, and he had to try his best to not show too much how he was pleased and frightened at the same time by Jack's confession.

"Jack… How many years passed for you? You really look older."

Jack smiled a sad smile, swallowing the lump forming in his throat.

"Only the four years I mentioned before. I wanted to find a place for me on Earth, hoped that I could at least see you again or something… But I ended up making things worse, so I fled and then a friend suggested in his own way that I had to try and be myself again. In the long run it didn't work though. I discovered that I really hadn't been ready to lose you. Not so early, not like that."

"Was it... after you met that future me?" Ianto asked, consciously adding up to his guilt list as he wondered if he had more direct responsibilities in Jack's inability to get over his death.

He had always wanted for his lover to never forget him, to hold his memory close to his heart, but he had never wished for Jack to end up completely wasted with grief. He had never actually thought that would be an issue altogether, since Jack never even told him that he loved him, not even during the few moments they talked before his death. Seeing his lover so worn out was too much to bear though, no matter how much he had craved to be loved deeply by the man.

"No, it was before." The captain answered sincerely, lifting a weight from Ianto's heart.

"Then…?"

"I wanted back what I had." Jack explained, trying to focus on the road and not on his heart breaking. "My plan was to rebuild everything the way it was, come back to the graveyard and bring in the morgue what was left of you, so you could stay forever by my side."

"Jack…" Ianto was at a loss of words on that argument. "What happened to you in these four years?"

"Well I told you about the first six months, but you wouldn't remember the time I actually managed to get you, so… Let's leave it, ok? After that, well, you know how I am when I don't get what I want… I drink, have sex, search for adventures… But everything had lost its flavour. That's what made me come back to Earth first and then Cardiff. Nothing actually changed. Not without you there with me."

"I want to believe you, Jack, but it's hard." Ianto's words were laced with sadness and regret, in a way not much different from the many times in which Jack had managed to royally mess things up and left his lover wondering about his place in the captain's life.

"Why's that?" Jack asked, knowing that the moment had come. The moment to finally confront the doubts he had left Ianto with when they had died together in London.

"We were nothing Jack. What we _were_ didn't have a name, what we _had_ didn't have a name. You don't even love me, even though I can assume from your words that you have sincerely missed me."

Those words hurt Jack even though he was expecting them and he was conscious that Ianto had good reasons to think that. Four years of purgatory couldn't erase his mistakes. He had promised to himself he wouldn't do anything stupid again after The Year That Never Was, but in the end he still proved to be too slow catching up with his lover's feelings as much as his owns.

"Do not cheapen my feelings for you, Ianto Jones." He managed to say, his voice barely a whisper as he tried to keep it straight. "I know it's scary to be back when you thought you were already dead, but… Eventually we'll work it out together, no matter what you choose to do with us. If you still want me, we can be anything… everything. I want to play on your terms this time, no matter what they are."

"Jack, I don't want your pity and I don't want you to feel like you have to right your wrongs nor do moral-wise stuff like that. I'm not your lost case. You had four years to move on, you don't need to go back because I was left behind."

"Have you listened to half of the things I said?" Jack cried out, tightening his grip on the wheel as he did his best to at least keep the car on the road. "I _couldn't_ move on! I turned the hub into a damn mausoleum just because I missed you! Gwen had to swear that _you_ made me promise to make it alive again! The only thing that talked me out of my plan was she yelling at me how you had said that after being back from the death you wouldn't want another grave."

Silence filled the car, and Jack was sure he had said enough to get Ianto angry for the whole next week or so. If this was one of their normal arguments that would have been fine, but right now the only thing he felt like doing was to curl up in his bed and hold Ianto tight with no chance to let him go. To leave him brooding alone was not something he was willing to do at the moment.

"That sounds like me." Ianto replied after a while, easing Jack's worries.

"Damn sure it does! That's why I believed it."

Ianto stifled a laugh and Jack glanced at him, a smile appearing on his lips against his resolve to still look angry. The captain focused back on the road in front of him, letting melancholy fill his heart and words, despite his best attempts to sound neutral.

"I missed your laugh."

Jack mentally swore, realising that his voice didn't still sound as cool as he wanted.

"We laughed a lot together." Ianto's plain voice, seemed to hid in itself the same hurt and nostalgia that four years of grieving had carved in Jack's.

"Because we were happy."

"Because we joked and played a lot, actually." Ianto corrected him with a bitter smirk, and then turned his head to look seriously at his lover. "But yes, we were happy when we were together. When you left, thousands of doubts kept killing me inside... but when we were together, you were only for me."

Jack parked the SUV in the shadows of the Memorial, and took his chance to finally look at his lover directly in the eyes.

"I want that back Ianto. My feelings for you are the same and I gathered enough courage to even say it if you want me to. I don't know how much you've left to live, but _as long as we live our life to the fullest day by day… Doesn't an hour together have the same value of three months, and don't three months have the same value of five hundred years?_ All the time you have left… I would be honoured if you gave it to me, no matter how much it is."

"You're not like this, Jack. You don't do couples, you don't do commitments."

"Because it hurts!" Jack pressed on. "It hurts for me to lose everyone and I'm not just talking about people _dying_. My wife left me because she thought I was a monster… But you, you loved me and cared for me _even though_ you saw with your own eyes that I was like that… You're smart, handsome, funny, you've great voice, you keep up with me whatever I do and whatever I ask… I've become dependent on you, on you presence, on everything that you are."

Jack took Ianto's hands in his own and lovingly caressed its back with his thumb, trying to breach through the mess that was left of their relationship with the small little gestures that had always made Ianto feel loved.

"When you were around, I kept searching for you and I know you noticed my eyes on you. When you weren't, I thought of what we could do once we were alone and yes, no matter how many times _I_ told _you_ not to do it, _I_'ve always worried about where you went or if you were fine. I hated it each time you didn't tell me where you were going or when you were out late. I might have been scared to say it aloud back then, but you _must_ know what name my feelings for you have."

"But… my time is gone." Ianto argued broken heart, and looked away from Jack to hide the tears flowing down his eyes. "You need to be free to do what you have to do, I shouldn't be here stopping you."

"My time has gone too, Ianto. So many times I've lost count." Jack smiled at him and took his chin in his hand, bringing back up Ianto's face so that they could see each other. "I shouldn't be here as well."

"We make a nice couple." Ianto smiled sadly at him.

"Well, we are." Jack returned the smile and leaned towards his lover to give him a kiss on his cheek, but Ianto retreated, still feeling too uneasy to accept even that small sign of affection.

"Ca-can I have that shower now? I still feel like worms are crawling on me, even though they were only outside the coffin."

Jack nodded to him and they exited the car to finally reach the information centre. Once there, Ianto got a clearer idea of what Jack had meant calling the new base a mausoleum for him. Even though there were new cards, posters and updated flyers, everything was eerily identical to his old station. There were no distinctive signs that four years had passed, that changes had been made or that someone else had replaced him.

The main hub was just like tourist office. Different kinds of devices were lying scattered around and he could bet that some of the computers had been changed and updated, but the basic structure of it was essentially the same. He skirted off as soon as he could to have a look at the kitchen, both curious and worried about the changes his co-workers might have done, but there he found everything exactly how he remembered it, except for the shape of a pterodactyl painted on each side of his favourite brand coffee machine.

"We didn't know how you would have liked it." Jack explained, slowly joining him. "The kitchen was your domain, so we left this area like it was. We added the pterodactyl, though, Gwen said it would be cute to paint something there… And I suggested the pterodactyl, 'cause… Well you like Myfanwy..."

"That was a nice idea." Ianto saved him, his lost gaze melting into an amused one at Jack's embarrassment. "A little weird, but nice."

"C'mon, let's get that shower." Jack said snatching Ianto's bag from his lover's grip and taking his hand with his free one.

Due to the obviously awkward tension between them they made individual showers, but none of them complained as they laid together in Jack's small bed, their bodies fitting together like no time at all had passed.

Ianto was still unsure about where they stood, not only after the 456, but also after all those years that Jack had lived without him. Too many things had been left unsaid to make him fully appreciate his lover's proximity, but at the same time he needed to feel him and his familiar pheromones and his warmth, and he knew Jack needed this too.

Four years was a long time to stay dead and to keep it slow could maybe be the only thing that could really make them learn how to feel alive again.

At least for tonight.


	3. Know me again

Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

Warnings: Spoilers for almost everything except novels and comics. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, but I got my usual beta-testing by SOY. Long deep soul drama. No Gwen Cooper-Williams got harmed during the writing of _this_ chapter.

A/N: I don't dislike Gwen. I believe she's what any woman can be: confused, childish and egoist, but also strong and caring. I felt like they all needed the chance to let everything out, so you might encounter the darkest side of the characters, who aren't saints to begin with. This is a personal interpretation of why they did certain things in canon, but I don't think I'm much far off the target.

**Know me again**

Jack's alarm clock ringed too early for his likings, even though he had settled it at 8:30 AM, giving him more than three hours of sleep when he usually didn't need more than a couple.

The captain's first instinct was to stretch his sore muscles, but he found his arms pleasantly trapped around someone else. It didn't take much to his sleep fogged mind to identify the person as his Ianto. He tightened his embrace around his lover, fearing that it would be yet again just a dream, but the stifled groan he earned from his moving around erased all his fears at once.

Ianto automatically turned to face him in his arms and reached up to meet his lips in a sweet, sleepy kiss. Jack's coherent thoughts didn't make it past the realization that the Welshman wasn't much conscious of his own actions before he eagerly returned the kiss, giving Ianto access as soon as he felt his tongue sensually probing his lips.

"Jack, 's too early." Ianto mumbled drowsily as he kept kissing him, one hand burying itself in Jack's hair, while the other wandered over his lover's broad chest to tease him.

"Ianto, it's already eight thirty in the morning." Jack protested weakly, drugged by his lover's kiss and seeking more of it.

What Jack had said to stop further worrying from his lover unfortunately made Ianto sit up hastily, sending Jack sprawled on his back, half out the small bed.

"Gwen must be already here! I'll have to make her coffee before she-"

"Ianto, calm down." Jack tried to make him see reason as he sat up. "Gwen will be in late, won't she? Yesterday shift ended this morning, besides I delegated everything to UNIT for a couple of days."

He caressed lightly Ianto's arms the whole length, from wrist to his tense shoulders and left his hands there to relax his lover, randomly leaving a few kisses on his neck as he worked on his muscles and nerves. Ianto was already giving in to Jack's impromptu seductive massage, when he suddenly realized that there was no reason on Earth why Jack would have left their work to UNIT or for Gwen to be at the hub if they had actually declared themselves on holyday, so he scanned his memories for fresh information.

"Wait, the 456!? And…" He said suddenly, his shoulders dropping as he remembered way more recent events. "Oh, God… I'm dead."

Ianto hid his face behind his hands, but since he didn't make a move to get away from him, Jack kept going his handwork.

"You_ were _dead, but now you're back." Jack said slowly, trying to sound reassuring. "And I wouldn't say no to your coffee if you don't plan to keep going what you started."

Jack felt the daggers-like force of Ianto's stare on him even though he hadn't met his eyes. "You let me kiss you when you knew I wasn't ready."

Jack raised an eyebrow enquiringly and smirked at him, hoping to melt Ianto's rage the way the only way he was left familiar with.

"Oh really?" He teased, glancing at Ianto's groin. "You seem to me _hard_ly not ready."

"You can't use my body against me, Jack."

This time Ianto's tone was serious, so Jack grudgingly let go of his shoulders.

"Sorry, I couldn't stop myself. I had barely woken up myself… And I really missed you."

"I didn't know I was this good." Ianto told him coldly, standing up. "I should consider make it a business then."

Jack stood up and sighed. Perfect way to begin the day.

They dressed in silence and even more silently they slipped out of the dark bunker.

"Sleeping truce already ended?" Once out in the broad light of the office neon Jack tried to go for humour, but Ianto didn't even think that he deserved an answer and instead he proceeded steadily to the kitchen, disappearing behind the coffee machine.

Despite the tension between them, Jack took the coffee-making routine as a good sign, so he busied himself with some little basic updates of Ianto's files to bring him back to life_ lawfully_ as much as physically. After almost half an hour in which Ianto made no sign of coming back to deliver a mug for him though, he started to get worried.

It might have been four years, but Jack remembered exactly how much it took to his lover to make coffee, and it was nowhere near this long. He wandered up to the kitchenette and found Ianto sat down in a corner, fighting tears. He cursed himself for leaving him alone all that time without checking, and in a few seconds he was at his side, holding him tight.

"It's real Ianto… _this_ is real." He cooed, rocking him in his arms. Ianto hid his face between Jack's shoulder and neck, letting the other man kiss his head and grasp firmly the nape of his neck to keep him closer. "You're back, Ianto. Back with me."

"I'm scared…" Ianto confessed in a whimper.

"I know, I was too when I first discovered I was back. We are going to find out what happened and how, Ianto. Together."

"Together?" He asked puzzled, tears eventually marrying his cheeks. "After all I said to you?"

"Ianto, I can understand how confusing this can be. For both of us. You have no reason to trust me except for your memories of four years ago, and about me… I wanted you back for so long, that now it's difficult not trying to have what we had straight from the last moment we were together. We can start afresh if you want to, but I'll always keep yearning for what we were, you must know that."

Ianto snorted, but held him even tighter, feeling guilty as he noticed his tears dotting Jack's shirt. A shirt he had never saw on him and that didn't smell like his own as it usually did since the day he began taking their things to wash together.

"Shouldn't this be reversed? Me trying to hold onto the old memories we shared and that for me are like yesterday, and you already fine, moved on with new lovers and new everything?"

Jack changed positions a bit, making their cheeks brush together.

"That's because you have never been a blip in time Ianto Jones. I always held you in my heart and when I'll lose you again, I swear to you that things won't change, even though I managed to spend more time with you. If my immortal life is the price I had to pay to see you again here in my arms… Then the price becomes light in my eyes."

"Don't say this, Jack, you don't mean it. A life like yours will be too much for everyone."

"Yeah, and you have no idea how much I wanted to end it… Nevertheless it gave me you. I've been hopping around through time and space for a long time, but I doubt I would have had a chance to meet you otherwise."

"An office boy from Cardiff." Ianto drawled.

"A hero from Cardiff." Jack corrected him with a sad smile, letting his lips trace the lines of Ianto's jaw. "You're a hero, my Romeo, believe me. You died trying to save everyone: you're the hero, not me. I gave up everything I had left, everything I _was,_ out of grief. You would have been stronger than me, you would have kept doing the right things… You would have stopped me."

Jack's voice was a strangled cry near the end, his grandson's cry still echoing in his ears.

"What happened after my death?"

"Alice managed to persuade the authorities that we could actually do the job they paid us for," Jack confessed in a single breath. "And was rewarded by me sacrificing Steven to destroy the aliens."

"Oh, God." Ianto whispered, bringing his hand to his mouth as his eyes widened in horror. They lingered for a moment on Jack's pained face, and then he freed himself from his lover's arms to cradle him in his owns. "I'm here, Jack… I love you anyway, you know that, don't you?"

Jack looked up at his lover with a pained smile and swallowed, tears threatening to roll from his eyes too. "I love you too, Ianto. Believe me, say it aloud may hurt… But not saying it at all when you already fell is way worse."

Ianto held the man even tighter and Jack snuggled close to him, both of them relaxing in the comfort they gave to each other.

**X**

Gwen found them snoozing there some time later, still holding onto one another.

"You guys fell asleep here?" She teased. "I know Jack's bed is small, but surely it must be more comfortable than the floor."

The two men blinked a couple of times at her, realizing how they had shamefully fallen asleep again after their small confrontation. Gwen smiled motherly at them and held out her hands to help them up. They shared a mischievous grin and then they took a hand each to pull her down between them. She fell over the boys, but instead of hurling something at them in retaliation she took her chance to hug them both as they all began laughing.

"Now the loss of dignity is properly shared." Ianto concluded, plainly satisfied.

"Well to the loss of dignity could always follow a threesome." Jack teased, eliciting an eye roll from Ianto and a doubtful raise of eyebrow from Gwen.

"Am I in the middle of something?" Rhys questioned uncertainly, staring down at his wife and her co-workers.

"Scratch the threesome." Jack corrected himself with a big happy smile. "Up for a foursome?"

Ianto and Rhys simply shook their heads good-naturedly, but Gwen actually looked at him seriously in the eyes.

"We have to talk, Jack, we can't hold this off." She said, and without waiting for his answer she marched silently to the conference room, followed by a puzzled Rhys and a resigned Jack, whilst Ianto took his chance to actually finish the coffee he had been brewing.

When Jack went back searching for him, he met his lover half-way with a trail full of mugs of the delicious liquid and some plates of biscuits.

"We had no breakfast in the end… I thought this could help, especially if I understood correctly what all this talking is about."

Jack smiled at him and gave him a small peck on his lips, rejoicing when Ianto didn't bolt away like the last time. "Your coffee always helps, and yeah, I fear you got the topic right."

When all of them were seated in the conference room with their cup of coffee though, a dreadful silence fell over them. Gwen and Rhys sat one near the other, while Jack and Ianto took a seat opposite to them, Jack facing Gwen and Ianto facing Rhys. For the three co-workers the casual sitting arrangement was so symbolic it already made their stomach twist.

"I didn't realize Rhys was going to be part of this," Jack eventually said with a nervous laugh. "Does his part time stretch through the days off?"

Gwen gave him a _you-know-exactly-why-he-is-here_ smile and then lowered her eyes to the table.

"Ianto said there would be four of us back 'ere today and somehow I didn't think he meant Rhiannon."

"Did I?" Ianto asked perplexed.

"Well" Gwen explained. "Your future self actually. He promised me we would have a chance to explain."

"_We_ being…?"

"Me and you." She stated, still not taking her eyes off the point of the table she was staring at. "I know that I love Rhys and I know that Jack will always watch out for me… But I have no idea where working together has left us, Ianto. I thought I knew you, but as a matter of fact you told me only a bunch of lies."

Ianto simply stared at her, disheartened, trying to not let his carefully hidden resentment have the best of him.

"It's because I'm private, Gwen. You have to look _close_ to be aware of things. Even Owen did that in order to notice that I was sleeping with Jack, but you…" Ianto said, searching for the less hurtful way to say what he thought. "You didn't even fucking notice I _never_ followed you guys when you went off for ice-cream. The real question here is: where does _this_ put _me_ in _your_ life, Gwen?"

"If I didn't notice right away you could have told me, I can listen!"

"I-I-" Ianto stuttered, glancing at Rhys with the corner of his eye. "I'm not going to have this conversation with Rhys listening, Gwen. I don't have your nerve."

Rhys stared puzzled at Ianto and then at his wife, but they now seemed to only see one another.

"My _nerve_?" Gwen asked, her face a cold mask as she tried to hid her emotions.

"When Jack died the first time…" Ianto explained, swallowing uncomfortably at the painful memory. "I mean, when we saw it for the first time, after Owen shot him… We had all betrayed him. _All of us_, Gwen! How could you bear to look at his blue lips, at his face void of colour and…and simply wait beside him! Like you were the mother or wife or friend that had never failed him!"

"What was I supposed to do, Ianto!?" She argued, her surprise crumbling through her blank façade. "He told me when I first joined, that everyone makes mistakes, but we have to live by them! _Right_ the _wrong_! I was the one who _knew_ for the longest time that he couldn't die, and that made _me_ the one who would have trusted him the most to come back. I was just doing my _duty_!"

"I might have very well _hoped_ for the same thing even without the knowledge, have you ever thought about that?" Ianto's eyes became even sadder and weary as he saw the realization dawning on Gwen right in front of his eyes.

"I kept fixing things in his office and his paperwork for the day he would return to us, but…" He continued lowering his eyes. "Each time I saw him dead I remembered how much I had failed him. I failed the man who trusted _me_ to do the right thing, only because I saw the woman that _I _used to trust telling me that everyone would have been saved if I opened it! Everyone, Gwen. What were my feelings if confronted with the life of thousands people. Including your Rhys."

The real meaning of Ianto's last statement lingered in the air between the two of them. Including Rhys, the only reason that stood between Jack and Gwen. Still it was not the always lingering and coldly calculated jealousy that came as a revelation to Gwen and left her at a loss of words.

Not only had she never thought that the reason her friends hadn't waited by Jack's side was the guilt for their betrayal, and not the lack of trust in Jack's immortality, but she had also always thought that Ianto had simply hoped, all that time, to get Lisa back. Just like Owen had wanted to save Diane.

She would have never guessed it to be actually the same issue he and Jack ended up fighting over right before Thames house. Do everything he could to save everyone versus sacrificing some to save all the others. What had made Ianto betray Jack's trust had been nothing else than what eventually managed to get him killed. It hurt knowing that she could have never learnt something so important about her friend without this second chance.

"Ianto, that time… in the end no one died." She whispered warmly, wishing that she could mend the wound somehow. "Rhys is still here, Jack is still here, the Earth… is still here."

Ianto shook his head. "Only because Jack sacrificed himself! God, Gwen, I cried my eyes out hidden in his office, struggling because I wanted to have half of the courage you were showing to be at his side. Nevertheless I was only the damn treacherous tea-boy."

He was at the verge of tears, but he wasn't going to let them out. After all everything was already in the past… No matter how much it hurt each time he remembered Jack lying cold and lifeless in the morgue.

"That's why I said never again." Ianto continued, before his courage could falter. "And that's why I forgave him when he came back from his trip with the Doctor. I forgave him the way he had forgiven me for my betrayals. I repaid my debt and then tried to become someone who was actually _worth_ to stay at his side when he died, so I could protect him without feeling guilty. I _earned_ my place next to him."

He took a deep breath, and looked back at Gwen, trying to not break the eye contact with her.

"Because I might admire your cold blood and how well you deal with your feelings to get the work done, I _really_ do. I know Torchwood needs this… However I'm not like you, Gwen. I need to set things right and well categorized before moving on. It's hard for me to leave everything to unpredictable chances, no matter how much I believe in them."

"We're different, but that's good for Torchwood, isn't it?" Gwen countered, looking at him with pleading eyes. "This is why I want for us to be a little more open about what we feel. I realized that I did it with Tosh, Owen… I keep doing it with Jack, but something always stopped me to do the same with you."

Ianto had to snort at that: Gwen's lack of understanding of the basics of her own mind was simply unnerving. He realized that they were all broken and tainted souls, that no one of them had any right to judge the others and that they had to live and work despite knowing what they had done in the past to one another or to other people.

However, _this_ was a peculiarity of Gwen's character that had always made him shut himself from her, because he knew that right there laid the grounds for her crush over Jack switching on and off. If he could forgive her for always forgetting him and putting him in the background, he couldn't forgive her for acting like she was Jack's most loved or trusted one, plainly _ignoring_ that _he_ was the one that shared his bed.

It was purely irrational, but he couldn't stop himself from feeling uneasy each time he noticed her behaviour when she thought that she was alone with Jack. Realizing that they rarely did it on purpose or that he had no right to voice his opinion on the matter didn't made him feel better.

"Because I didn't exist, Gwen. _I_ was the one deleting the data about Torchwood you wrote on your computer right after Jack retconned, you-" Gwen's eyes widened in shock, and Ianto couldn't help groaning at her reaction. He had been the only one left at the base, who else could it have been? "You didn't even saw fit to mention the butler. I became a more important part of your daily routine only when I became Jack's unofficial boyfriend slash official shag."

Jack tried to butt in, but he was stopped by a flick of their hands.

Ianto's lies had always covered things nicely, but now that the small ones floated on the surface, if they didn't solve this soon it would have been too hard to keep working together. The trust had already been broken and had revealed how fragile it was the link that tied them once they put Jack aside, especially now that Tosh and Owen weren't there to mend the fractures.

"You get to talk about that later, Jack." Gwen explained him. "First… Ianto's right, we can't do this if I'm not honest with Rhys."

Ianto and Jack looked at each other both worried and unsure about her intentions. How much was Gwen willing to admit? Now the matter didn't just include the four of them, but also her daughter, and all the problems they had paled in front of the future and happiness of the child.

Rhys raised an eyebrow and stared at his wife, only marginally reassured by her previous declaration of love, especially since Jack and Ianto's reaction made clear that he wasn't going to like it.

"Rhys, I-I had a thing for Jack awhile back," She began, her hands trembling on the table. "I actually never acted much on it, but I surely tried to get some reactions from him more than once."

His world crumbled, but also lightened up a little bit. It hadn't been only a matter of privacy and different personalities that had kept Ianto and Gwen apart, but good old jealousy. They were after the same man. It was so obvious thinking about it now, that he wondered how he could have missed it.

"I thought I got over it when we finally married. I knew marrying you was the right thing to do, it was what I _wanted_ the most, and… well Jack and Ianto's fling never actually got official, but it had been stable for at least half a year or so, they went to dates, spent an awful lot of time together…"

Gwen's upset voice surprised her as much as it hurt Rhys. It wasn't just '_I had a thing for Jack_', it was more likely '_I have a thing for Jack_', no matter how she tried to put it in the past.

"And despite all that I still didn't imagine how much Ianto's death would have crushed him." Gwen continued, pretending to be oblivious of her husband's disappointment. "Seeing it made me think that… maybe even before me choosing you, I never was an option in Jack's plans. I felt played, like it had never been my call. And I wanted it. I wanted to feel again what I thought I felt when I first joined Torchwood."

Gwen searched for Jack's eyes and found the captain staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face. She knew she was close to losing everything she held close to her heart. The three most important men of her life could leave her because of what she was confessing, but she couldn't keep that inside anymore.

"But even in bloody America Jack barely considered me. Even without Ianto around, he still preferred casual flings or someone else, but not me. I know its egoistic pretending to have someone chasing me only to have back a chance I didn't want to take in first place… I still believed it possible anyway. Does it make me such a bad person?"

"What if Jack had been willing Gwen?" Rhys asked her coldly, dreading her answer. "Would you have left me and fled away with 'im?"

Gwen shook her head and tried to reach for his hand, but he moved it away.

"That's not it, sweetheart…" She tried again.

"Wait." Jack interrupted, looking at both of them sternly. "I want to say my part too before you answer him."

His eyes were so dangerous that they simply swallowed and nodded.

"I liked you from the very beginning, Gwen. I already told you: you're brilliant and I admire the way you work with things as much as I admired Ianto's, Tosh's and Owen's. And _this_ is why I can realize _how_ you keep doing what you do the way you do. I always told you to take care of what you had with Rhys, to not let it drift. I said so because I care a lot for you, I felt a connection from the first moment I saw you. I like you. Later on you _became_ a sister, a best friend who would always be at my side, fighting for the things we want to protect. This is what I feel for you _right_ _now_."

"Don't think that I simply flirted with you to confuse you, because I'm not like that. I did care for you enough to understand that it wouldn't have worked between us. I can be interested in lots of people at the same time and my feelings for them are different for each one of them, but this doesn't make them fake. I can't even say I love Ianto in the same way I loved my wife. There's no better or worse, just… different."

"I'm sorry," Jack finished, trying to sound as sincere as he could. "This is just the way I am. I lived here a long time and I'm willing to adapt to some things, but I still am from a different culture. We feel and do things differently. I'm sorry I confused you, but my crush and my feelings for you weren't fake, they were just _not enough_ to choose you over Ianto or to believe that I would make you happier than Rhys. I moved on."

"Different doesn't mean wrong after all." Ianto whispered at his side as his mouth tightened in what was supposed to be a smile to comfort his lover.

Jack looked back at him, smiling warmly back at him. They had fought a lot because of their differences, but he knew that Ianto understood and accepted him anyway. That was precisely what had made him fall so hard for his young employee.

"I know you understand, Ianto, that's why _you_ are my fixed point. I already told you more than once… You could never be just a blip in time. We understand each other too well… and I promise I'll show you that from now on."

Jack's attention was all focused on Ianto, hoping that this time finally he could say the right words to finally convince the man he would never love someone as much as him.

"When I'm with you I feel a proper human again." Jack continued. "_Gwen opened my eyes with her way to fight to protect her love life and then family despite working at Torchwood, but it was you that gave me the hope I could become someone I might like. You made me believe I could be good enough for someone, so that I could have what she had for myself._"

"So, it's all about need, isn't it? Not about feelings." Gwen cut in drily, hating with every inch of her being the way she felt hearing the same hurtful words twice. If even without his memories, he had told Ianto the same words he had said three months before to Future Ianto, there was no chance that Jack didn't mean them. "You love me, but you need Ianto and I need Rhys? What kind of explanation is that!? You and I are the monsters and they are the ones who can make us human with their beatin' 'eart!? This is why we can't work this out!?"

Being called a monster hurt Jack deeply, but ever more so it hurt seeing how Gwen now considered herself one too. Torchwood had carved a deep scar in the heart of the curious justice-follower woman he had first met, a wound that he had obviously barely acknowledged.

"Gwen, there's nothing to work out." Jack tried to explain. "You love Rhys and you always will. I saw how much you do! When you thought he died you went crazy with grief! Each time he was in danger you would have gotten yourself killed to protect him! You defied _me_ because you wouldn't retcon _him_! That's not just guilt because he's nice to you, Gwen, don't fool yourself."

Jack paused and took a deep breath. "Because no guilt stopped you to be nasty to Ianto, and you know that sometimes you have done it."

"It wasn't on purpose… Not always." Gwen protested, staring down at her hands guiltily. "I usually realized some time afterwards that what I told him could have upset him…"

She then looked back at Ianto, her face severe and unyielding. "Because he never says a thing. Was it awful saying _Gwen, shove it_? Tosh was way more honest with her half said sentences, at least I knew how she felt about things."

"We have to work together." Ianto's face was as void of emotions as he could make it, but not even that could hide the guilt he felt.

"That's not an excuse! We need to be honest with each other, so that we can deal with our problems!"

"But I can't!" He cried. "That's why things were getting better after your marriage! Because you stopped being a nasty jealous third wheel and I could finally work with you without pretending I could stand the way you were after my boyfriend! I really believed that those flirts were finally case closed after that damn dance!"

"You could never say you were boyfriends… because Jack never had the courage to tell you, did he? And he stole glances at me when he was dancing with you, I saw that myself!"

"I was wondering if you were ok!" Jack cut in, before Ianto had a chance to retort something he would regret. "I did not know if you were sure about the wedding, if you had actually realized who and why was at the top of your list, if you would stay with Torchwood. Besides I knew you were still confused about me, but I you didn't seem to realise that you would have to let me go after that day. Moreover…"

Jack took a long breath and lowered his eyes. "You look a lot like Lucia, so much it hurt for me seeing you in that wedding dress and not knowing if that was really what you wanted. I didn't want your marriage to fail like mine."

"So what? You let me marry Rhys because in case we ended up marring each other instead, I would have left you like she did? Or because you believed you wouldn't make me happy? Let _me_ decide about it!"

"There was nothing to decide!" Jack shouted. "You don't love me as a husband, you love what I represent in your life! I gave you the thrill that your life was missing. You changed your mind back again when I came back only because you were bored out of your mind, and that's my fault Gwen! There's a reason why we retcon people who leave Torchwood when they don't die on their own!"

"And about my feelings," He concluded wearily after a small moment of silence. "I already told you I don't love you the way I love Ianto. I don't see a future for us now in a love relationship, and truth to be told maybe I never did, I'm sorry. Something in the back of my mind always made me feel like it was wrong with you."

"But you would have _sex_ with me." She protested.

"I could be willing to play and have sex with lots of people, Gwen, but lately the offer was about joining me and Ianto for a little bit of fun between consentient people. There hasn't been a me and you alone in that for a long time. At the beginning I might have considered, but then things became serious between you and Rhys and then between me and Ianto. I got to know you, to _trust_ you… and I never play with my friends feelings. I learnt my lesson after John."

"John Hart… He was right about a lot of things…" Gwen considered, eyeing dangerously Jack. "He loved you and you abandoned him."

"It was an arrangement, it's not my fault he fell in love." Jack protested. "And anyway… I was a different man back then, a man I didn't like at the time and I don't like now. He fell in love with him, but that me died hundreds of years ago."

"We began as an arrangement too." Ianto's weak protest caught Jack's attention anyway.

"This is different, Ianto, believe me. John and I were trapped, instead you and I chose to be together. I'm not joking when I say I love you… I really _do_ love you. The kind of love that will destroy me when you'll be gone. It already has."

"So you won't grieve if you lost me!?" Gwen cut in, broken-heart.

"Of course I would grieve!" Jack argued, surprised at the question. "Like I grieved for Tosh and Owen, even more! They are still in my heart with all the people I cared for… That's why I couldn't look at you anymore after losing Ianto. You were the only one left and I had no intention of seeing you dying like them. I came back all the same though, because I really can't live without friends and love, no matter how much I try. I had already sworn myself I would never fall in love with someone again after Lucia and look where I'm now."

"When I was trapped in the forties with Tosh," Jack explained calmly, his eyes falling on his own hands, now resting in front of him on the table. "I had the chance to meet the man I stole my name from. It was the day before his death and before my new life as him. I told him to not leave things undone. That made me realize how much I was denying myself, nonetheless I felt pressured to follow my own advice only after going away with the Doctor. Losing everything I was fighting for made me realise what were the things that mattered. How adventures had lost their appeal if I had no one to come back to tell them to."

"Someone to come back to…" Gwen told him wearily. "You said you came back for him, for us, for me… What was the truth, Jack?"

"I came back because I missed the team _I chose_, because I wanted to set things right with Ianto since I realised that even though we were both in pain, I kept taking without giving anything back. I knew he deserved better bedside manners… and also better inside-bed manners." He added with a short lived smirk remembering the banter his team had with Beth at the time.

"I also came back _for_ you… Because of you, because you remembered me I had a heart, because I was still wondering if things would have worked out between the two of us somehow. Just, after that… the more I thought about my coming back later, the more I realized what I missed more, what I needed… _who_ would bring my heart with him definitely when death would take him away."

"Ianto wasn't a second choice, Gwen" He finished, looking at her in her eyes. "And neither was Rhys for you. We've chosen them well, above all the others."

Gwen lowered her eyes, trying her best not to cry, whilst Ianto simply rested his head on Jack's shoulder as his lover encircled his arm around his shoulders.

"Gwen," Rhys said slowly, his voice void of emotions echoing in the silence. "Can you answer me now?"

She nodded and then took a deep breath, drying with her sleeve the tears that fell from her eyes.

"I thought about it many many times and in the end… No, I wouldn't have left you. It would have stayed an office fling at the very best. Jack is right, the way I love him is different from the way I love you and we both need more than _run-away-from-reality_ sex."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I don't feel myself deprived in the sex area." Jack protested as he glanced at Ianto, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

"Neither do I." She replied, the corner of her lips barely twitching upwards.

"And it feels so warm and so right when you hold me…" She continued staring at Rhys with big lovingly eyes. "Everything that's bad, wrong or confused in my life disappears… as if by work of magic."

Rhys looked at her intently, considering her words. "That was a lot to keep inside. For all the three of you. No wonder you were always in danger of losing it."

"I pity you lot." He continued, staring at turn at all of them.

They looked away, knowing that they couldn't expect less from Rhys. They hadn't been honest with him and even now they were covering things up, like Gwen's fling with Owen. They should all be ashamed with themselves. She surely felt ashamed, as much as she feared that Rhys's pity could mean the definite end of their relationship.

"But I forgive you." He concluded much to everyone's surprise. "I forgive you all. Thanks for finally telling me."

Gwen let out the breath she didn't know was holding and threw her arms around her husband. "I love you… I'm so sorry, Rhys. I'm so sorry… You're too good to me."

"Yeah yeah, I know. You should make me poetry." Rhys joked, as he held her tight and caressed her back to comfort her.

When the hug ended, Gwen took a deep breath and looked at her co-workers. "And what about us? Are we going to be ok?"

"I don't know, but _everything is possible if your heart is in it_." Ianto answered, trying for a warm smile. Gwen felt an eerie sense of déjà vu hearing again the same words Future Ianto himself had told her. "We can build up the personal trust again, if you want. I'm in for a long series of new beginnings, one more won't kill me. Again."

Jack tightened his grip on Ianto's shoulders, but didn't protest further. If his lover could joke about his own death then there were good chances of him healing quicker than he thought.

Gwen smiled at them and then she focused back on Jack. "What about you?"

He smiled warmly. "It's fine with me, Gwen. I'm sorry I wasn't clearer about this from the beginning… But I didn't realize how things were myself. I would be honoured if you could still think of me as your best friend."

She smiled and nodded to him. "Then we're all set. So… What are we going to do? We go all together chasing the last weird case Andy left me with?"

"Go home." Jack told her sternly, but with a warm smile on his lips. "Stay with Rhys and Anwen, enjoy your family, stitch up what cracked during this conversation. Take your time. You have to give yourself time to forgive yourself… And to forgive us too."

Gwen nodded and she stood up, followed by Rhys. Before going, she stopped to look back at them, trying to manage a true smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Working on the first… But already done the second. See you tomorrow guys."

When Jack and Ianto were finally alone, they both took a deep breath and let it out loudly, leaning on one another for support as they felt the tension leave their bodies.

"I really thought this would have destroyed us. It went better than I hoped." Ianto considered.

"Well, what doesn't kill you fortifies you."

Ianto had to raise an eyebrow at that. "I'm not sure that's the correct way to phrase it, sir. Shouldn't it be '_What doesn't kill you makes you stronger_'?"

Jack simply shrugged. "Lucia used to say it like that. I guess she translated it straight from Italian."

It was unusual for Jack to share personal snippets of his former family so freely and Ianto didn't dare to hope that his lover was finally opening up to him. He could try to follow the topic though, to see actually how much the captain was willing to share.

"How are things with Alice, Jack?"

"They aren't." Jack answered with a sigh. "I killed her son. There's nothing I could do to make up to her."

"Have you even tried?"

"I don't want to hurt her with my presence." He cut short, so Ianto simply nodded and stored the information away for later, trying to find a way to change the subject.

"You know, it still seems so strange that I've been dead for so long. The 456 to me _really_ feels like yesterday."

Jack held his lover from behind, and left a light kiss on the nape of his neck.

"For me, too. The only difference between us is that I had to live through how the world had changed and you still don't know how things are."

"We'll have to change that." Ianto stated, knowing pretty well that Jack wouldn't want to let him out in a world four years in the future so easily.

"I thought we had a matter of feeling alive to solve first." Jack said, his hands roaming freely over Ianto's body. His fingers found the buttons of his lover's shirt and he deftly began undoing them, as he teased the plains that lay under the soft material with his hands.

Ianto gave in and let himself fall in his lover's embrace, searching behind himself for something he could grip.

"This position feels good, but I'd like to touch you too after all this time. You think that's possible?"

"Back to my bunker?" Jack proposed suggestively.

"Always".


	4. Aliens in Cardiff

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood and Doctor Who or the Addams family, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for almost everything except novels and comics. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, but I got my usual beta-testing by SOY. Eleven (Twelve?). From here it starts the real crossover with Doctor Who… This if you believe that we should talk about crossovers when dealing with main series and spin-offs. No general UNIT General got harmed during the writing of _this_ chapter aka where the real fan fiction begins. Some drama in the end, but mostly crack. Maybe the silliest thing I ever wrote in my entire fanfic-writer life.

**Aliens in Cardiff **

After almost two hours, Jack and Ianto had finally felt enough _alive_ to leave the hub and enjoy the pale sun Cardiff had to offer. After some debating, they decided that even though going to visit Rhiannon was among the first things on their _to-do_ list, it wasn't actually the top one.

Since Jack had left the rift-monitoring to UNIT, there would be no chances of work-related excuses in case she insisted on them staying overnight. They both agreed that the couch would be pretty damn comfortable, but they also realised that they would never survive a whole night together without taking things further.

That's why they decided that it would be more sensible to use their afternoon off to help Ianto adjust to the new Cardiff. For someone who prided himself on his local knowledge –no matter what Gwen thought that meant– it would be a lot to take in, so they had to go through it little by little.

Jack began summing up some main historical facts happened over the last few years while they ate in the same posh French restaurant near the Memorial, where Rhiannon's unwilling secret agent had seen them.

Ianto had to wonder if Susanne-The-Friend would be lurking around to play spy for his sister again, but his concern about '_being seen_' left him as soon as he let himself being charmed by the mundane news that he had always liked devouring, and the delicious view of Jack Harkness in a waistcoat.

After lunch, they decided on an essentials shopping tour, basically consisting in buying different kind of coffee brands, biscuits and chocolate for the hub and some new clothes for Ianto. Passing by an ice-cream parlour, Jack pleaded his boyfriend enough to actually get to sit at one of the tables outside to take some for himself. Obviously Ianto raised an eyebrow at his choice of snack as he ate a big piece of his own cake.

"How's your cake?"

Ianto opened exaggeratedly his mouth as he gulped down a forkful of it and moaned at the flavour loud enough for Jack to hear him. "Absolutely delicious. Welsh cakes are the best."

Jack swallowed at the display, realizing how he wasn't in the mood for ice-cream anymore.

"Give me a bite?" He asked giving Ianto his best pout.

"Of course. When we go back at the hub I'll bite you as much as you want." Ianto teased, making his boyfriend growl.

"How about a fair trade?" Jack proposed, but Ianto simply grimaced, eyeing the ice-cream with disgust. "Oh, c'mon! It wouldn't give you headaches if you ate it slowly."

Ianto pretended to ignore him and focused back on his cake, whilst Jack groaned and searched his plate for something tradable. His eyes fell on the top cherry he had been saving for later and smirked wickedly, thinking about how much fun they'd had with that kind of fruit in the past. No better time like the present to try that again, then.

"What about this? I remember you like cherries." Jack teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

Ianto snorted at him, vaguely considering Jack's farfetched exchange. There were good chances it would bring a little bit of fun if he played it well, especially since his lover had left it hanging right in front of him while he waited for an answer.

Too easy to play.

He smirked at Jack and took the cherry between his teeth, taking care to let the fluids overflow slowly and colour his mouth bloody red. As soon as he noticed his boyfriend's eyes widen and his mouth open slightly in full appreciation, he took the cherry with his hand and ate it properly, taking care to leave out the core.

"You…Will pay this." Jack said slowly, breathing heavier than usual.

"No problem with me," Ianto answered nonchalantly, taking another forkful of cake and leaving it hanging halfway between them. "But I thought you wanted to try Welsh before I paid for your ice-cream."

Jack smirked and took the whole fork in his mouth. He wasted a whole second too much to consider how the cake was truly good, and then focused back on his harassing boyfriend.

"I would suggest _me_ paying for the snacks, and then, well…" He teased. "If you allow me, I'd like to try a bigger bite off _another kind_ of Welsh. You know, the cake alone wasn't Welsh enough."

Ianto smirked and let go any pretence of innuendo.

"Naked hide and seek would be fair play? Thirteenth version?"

"Wouldn't get through it." Jack had to admit as he reached for his lover's chin. "Want you now."

"Heading back to the hub, already?" Ianto asked, already feeling heat running through his body.

"No better time than this."

Jack leaned in for a kiss and Ianto was already closing his eyes to savour it better, when Jack's mobile rang. Jack grimaced, holding it with hate that suddenly became utter revulsion as he read who the incoming call was from.

"You should answer that, it could be important." Ianto evenly advised him, noticing the words _UNIT_ on the screen. Jack did just that, using so much strength that he almost got the answer button clogged-up.

"This has better be an alien invasion." Jack growled.

"_We know that you and your comrade at arms are simply gallivanting around, captain Harkness! You should be the one currently dealing with the Weevils!_"

"Hello to you too, Colonel Whatever-Was-The-Name. Look, I asked cover up for a day of holiday for me and my staff, what were we supposed to do aside '_gallivanting'_ around? Do I need to explain the meaning of _holiday_ to you?" Jack retorted, annoyed at the stupid protests coming from UNIT.

Since they had discovered that some of Torchwood devices had ended up in UNIT possession three months before, things had been tense between the two groups, and since the Crown appeared to be on Torchwood side even thought the Government rooted for UNIT, Jack was sure that this was pure and simple retaliation.

"_We all thought you had better reasons for it! You and that police girl of yours are supposed to keep yourself professional!_"

Jack knew for a fact that UNIT was well aware that he and Gwen were going to use the holiday to hang around with whoever they wanted, as much as they recognized that Torchwood was far from professional material.

"Now, Colonel, you'll get me the General. NOW." His tone was so irritated, that the Colonel lost all his will to stand by his orders to deal with Torchwood and fled to search for the General, leaving Jack to a presumably long waiting.

"Weevil hunting…" Ianto considered almost to himself, taking another bite of his cake. "Doesn't sound too bad."

"What d'you mean?" Jack asked suspiciously as he dug hastily in the remaining ice-cream.

"It has been a long time since we went hunting together. Might be nice."

As weird as it sounded, Jack had to admit he had missed it too. Weevil hunting with Ianto was a double-adrenaline full immersion.

"I thought you wanted _a feel alive_ tour today, not a _risk your newly reacquired life_ one."

"What makes you feel more alive than that?" Ianto argued back with a wink.

Jack shared his lover's feelings on the matter actually. He had ended up living in danger only to feel alive again too after all the deaths around him and all the years of dull waiting for the Doctor. A waiting that now had turned out to be even longer as he couldn't do much more than hanging around until his death.

"You sure you're up to it?"

"Don't treat me like a glass doll only because I died once. You know I never had problems with Weevils, Thames House was something else entirely. We had no time to prepare ourselves properly for it."

Jack smiled at him and nodded.

"So…" Ianto tried to change the topic. "What's up with UNIT?"

"They're being jerks, nothing out of the ordinary. I personally scared their General for life some time ago while I was making the hub restored, you know? He dared to mention you… Not bad mouthing actually, but it just… Well, let's say I snapped at him. Quite violently. I believe he thinks high of you, truth to be told. He said himself that if you had been around, he couldn't have done it."

Ianto stared at Jack, trying to unravel the riddle, but he had so many things going on in his head at the moment that he thought that he had better let it go. If it was something important, Jack would have surely told him the details sooner or later.

"If he really liked me so much… Why don't you give him the good news?" Ianto's eyes glimmered with pure mischief.

Jack stared at Ianto with his spoon hovering in front of him full of ice cream and his mouth open for a while, and then a big evil smirk spread on his lips as realization dawned on him.

"Ianto Jones, you're wicked."

The General finally answered the phone, already barking and shouting.

"_Harkness! You'll deal with those Weevils, now! You've barely been back in action three-_"

"It's ok. We changed our minds." Jack interrupted him, unexpectedly cheery.

"_Oh_."

"But this will cost you, since you promised us back up and then you backed off."

"_What do you-_"

"Our archivist is back."

Jack could swear that he heard the General swallow.

"_You mean you got another one._" The General tried to reason, worried about the implication of Jack's statement."_He will need time to-_"

"Oh, no. Believe me or not _he_ is back. I'll send Rhys to collect everything that's ours tomorrow morning. Now I've got to go, sorry… Weevil date."

Jack closed his mobile completely satisfied, left the money for their food with the waitress and took eagerly Ianto's hand in his.

"So… We go back to the hub, leave your things there, get you a gun, check the sighting location on the radars and then… Let's go hunting!"

"Wait!" Ianto complained and tried to slow down his over excited lover. "I don't have an active gun licence."

"You have it. I took care of it and everything else when you were, well… '_making coffee_' this morning." Jack trailed off, using his free hand to draw the quotation marks in the air to emphasise how Ianto had not quite been making coffee at the time.

"Oh." Ianto said, his mood sobering.

"You're fine now?" Jack asked a little bit worried. "You just came back from death, you have a four years delay to catch up, and… Well, I've never been the best boyfriend."

"It's fine Jack. At least I'm not stuck in the middle like Owen was. Four years is a long time, but it will be easier than having to start everything from scratch. I have the basics."

"And… Well, what about me? We never got over what happened during the 456."

"You were under a lot of stress during the children ordeal," Ianto said, closing up the space between them. "I can't blame you if you kept snapping at me. Our work is stressful, fights are bound to happen."

Jack swallowed hard hearing his cheerless tone, and tightened his grip on his boyfriend's hand.

"That's why I wanted you to talk to me." Ianto continued, his voice firm and his eyes fixed on Jack, regarding him with sadness, but also with love. "I might have less than fifty years to share with you, but I can play as a decent pit stop in your life. I can't cleanse your soul for the future, but I could help you coming to terms with the past."

"It's hard for me to do it." Jack said, lowering his head to hide his embarrassment as a wide smile appeared on his face. "But I could try."

Ianto smiled warmly at him, closing the space between them even more, his sadness all gone hearing his boyfriend's words. His boyfriend. Jack had officially admitted that he was his boyfriend. It really had a nice sound, even better than he thought. So nice actually, that he really couldn't remember why he was so scared about saying it aloud or admitting the relationship to his sister.

"It's all I ever asked you."

Jack leaned in to kiss Ianto's cheek, and then both of them disappeared together in the direction of the hub laughing.

**X**

Not much time later, a dishevelled, skinny man wearing a bowtie appeared at the edge of a nearby alley. He was clenching tightly a weirdly shaped device in his hands. The tool was clearly made of scraps, but even though a fork, a couple knives and a spoon were peeking out from the edges of the mess, the machine seemed to be somehow working… just not in the way it was supposed to.

Its steady beeping and violent trembling stopped dead as soon as he exited the dark alley, so the Doctor just collapsed, disheartened, on the concrete, pouting.

"This is _unprecedented_, I'm a genius! Damn me for leaving Clara to her own devices, I could have used a hand here." Something came back to his mind and he grimaced. "No, actually not. Anyway."

He searched around himself just in case what he was looking for was actually there, under his nose, but he only noticed a young waitress staring at him, raising an eyebrow at his weird behaviour. Before the girl could ask if everything was ok he stood up, took some dust away from his mismatched garments and looked at her straight in the eye with a big, innocent smile.

"You wouldn't have seen something unusual around here, wouldn't you?" He asked, but before she could even try to answer, he turned his back to her, ready to go away. "No of course not. Who will notice something in bloody Cardiff? You got used to Jack after all."

The girl simply stared at him surprised and whispered "Actually no."

The Doctor angled his head to the left as he walked away, glad she had proved his point.

"You see? No point losing time asking." He stopped abruptly as a thought occurred him. He leaped back in front of the girl, who jumped slightly in panic.

"Do you know a place where I can make a phone call? Forgot my mobile in the T.A.R.D.I.S., I mean in my car, I mean in this city maybe you could actually know what a T.A.R.D.I.S. is, but it's safer call it a car anyway. You know, now nobody calls me anymore, well, not for chitty-chatty reasons anyway."

The girl raised an eyebrow at him and eyed him suspiciously as to say _'Guess why?'_, but in the end she graciously pointed him to a phone cabin across the road.

"Good kid, I guess I should say thank you." He said, and without actually saying thank you he run towards the phone box, leaving the poor waitress to shake her head in discomfort at his behaviour.

As soon as he reached his goal, the Doctor took out his screwdriver and tinkered with the phone receiver, so that he could make his call without being charged with money -which he didn't have-and that he could get who he wanted without actually dialling the correct number –which he also didn't have.

Luckily the trick never got old, regardless of the technology involved.

"Hello? I'm the Doctor!" He said cheerfully as a voice answered at the other end of the phone. "Yeah… Oh my God to you too. Need the General, a General… Not a general General, mind me, just a general UNIT General. Lost track of the names."

It was a matter of seconds before the call was promptly switched to the General's office.

"_Glad to hear about you again Doctor, but let's hope this is quick. We're extremely busy at the moment._"

"Why?" The Doctor said conversationally. "Are you planning to destroy another alien race? No, wait, I'm sorry. That was Torchwood."

There was a growl at the other end of the phone, but the Doctor simply ignored it. Some Generals liked him, some Generals hated him and, as much as he knew, the same love-hate relationship also applied for the UNIT-Torchwood association.

"Weeeell, I've been tracking a powerful flow of energy. I'm still not entirely sure what it actually is, but I keep losing track of it. I was wondering if you knew something? _Did_ something?"

"_Powerful energy?_" The general asked thoughtful. "_The one by the graveyard, you mean?_"

"Yeah! You see? You _can_ be useful, that's news! Not sure if bad or good, but news anyway!"

The Doctor could hear the General snort. Oh yeah, not even teasing UNIT heads became old.

"_We sent someone to check that last night, but there was nothing unusual there._"

"Nothing unusual? A tomb disappeared!" The Doctor protested loudly.

"_No tomb was missing when we checked,_" The General reasoned evenly. "_The things might not be related. People do change tomb locations without alien intervention, you know Doctor?_"

"Oh, yeah. I'll play chess with yours when your time comes, then."

"_We did our work. If there's something else, well… Uncertain alien threat that needs quick and in-depth intervention, trying to contain everything on a small scale? That's Torchwood, Doctor. Not us._"

"Well, I quite figured out that an office in Glasgow couldn't quite be helpful unless I wanted to learn origami. I still don't know if I already know how to do them, you know? It would have been a double loss of time."

"_I meant Three, Doctor, not Two._" The General argued annoyed. "_Even though it pains me to say that, you should ask Harkness._"

"Jack keeps rebuilding and dismantling his Torchwood on a whim lately."The Doctor replied, pouting at the casual reference to the top member of his own Guilt List.

If Rose, Martha and Donna were labelled as various shades of '_guilt_' in his mind, thinking about what he had done to Jack's life put the happy-go-lucky conman more on a level of '_kill me now_'.

"I need someone who can focus. I can't do that myself, I need someone who's better than me at that!"

"_It has been three months since Torchwood finally began working regularly._"

"Well, he made it work for even longer before dismantling it again."

"_I won't hope for it this time, Doctor._" The generally optimistic General said with a loud sigh. "_Their damn archivist is back._"

"I'm sorry?" There were so many things that didn't make sense in such a short statement that the Doctor couldn't even begin putting them on a straight line in his mind.

"_Oh, c'mon!_" The General spurred him on. "_Pale skin, eyes like daggers, smart, Welsh… Harkness' toy-boy! You must know that little paperwork devil._"

The General's last comment made the Doctor's brain gears stop their elaborating information work. If he had understood correctly who was the man the General was speaking about, well no. He had never known him. He had never cared enough to meet Jack's friends, since he was already too busy trying to not lose his owns.

No matter how much he knew Jack loved his custom-made Torchwood and no matter how much he knew he would end up suffering alone after he lost them. Having lived a long life himself should have taught him better, especially considering how he himself had lost all the people he cared for anyway.

Why the heck had he even thought Jack would have been better on his own away from his eyes when he realized the mess Rose had done? It was a complete nonsense considering that the captain was born human. Still, he had to admit, it was a whole lifetime ago.

"Never knew him actually." The Doctor barely whispered before focusing back on the task at hand. "But! More important than that: did you just say that Jack's boyfriend, the one who died four years ago, is back? When did it happen?"

"_Harkness barely told us about half an hour ago. Why do you think we've been so busy?_"

"Why would his coming back matter with you anyway?" He argued back.

"_We nicked some stuff from Torchwood._" The General confessed frustrated. "_Both One and Three. Jones will kill us in paperwork if we don't give that back. The kid was Torchwood One and even when working with Three he still kept correspondence with Two. He knows all the Torchwood archives by heart despite being a bloody whore!_"

The Doctor scowled and shook his head in disappointment. Priorities, these damn apes always got their priorities wrong and that didn't include just UNIT. Jack was an ape without the right priorities too. An immortal ape that he strongly suspected had been hopping around space making messes as he went by.

There was still hope that things weren't related though, there was always hope after all. Still he wouldn't put it past Jack to try something desperate out of love or grief, since Captain Ape didn't acknowledge half-ways.

"Just tell me one more thing. Where was he buried? Jack's boyfriend, I mean."

"_In Cardiff's graveyard, obviously. Recently they made fictitious tombs next to his for the other Torchwood staff members whose bodies blew up along with their hub a few years ago._"

"Their names?"

There were few moments of silence filled with key tapping.

"_Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper…_"

"Suzie Costello?"

"_Yeah, her too._"

"Thanks for your help." The Doctor concluded, giving up any hope for Jack's innocence in this. "Now I've got a little bad immortal ape to spank."

And with that, the Time Lord put the receiver back into its place and did what everyone else would do in such a situation: he asked for the directions to Torchwood and was kindly pointed towards the bay.

So much for the secret base of a secret organization.

**X**

In the meantime, Jack and Ianto had found out the Weevil's hideout and had the situation contained. Despite the few concerns left about Ianto's safety, they managed to get rid of the alien without much harm to themselves or to their victim.

"C'mon, boy, let's head home." Ianto told to the struggling Weevil, pushing him along.

"Boy? You sure it's a boy?" Jack asked him, crestfallen.

"Why? You wanted a girl?"

"Lately I never managed to get a girl alive, would you believe that?" He explained with a sigh. "I still miss a replacement for Janet."

Ianto looked carefully at his lover, trying to not laugh in his face. "Well, for the moment you should stick with Bred I guess. You know, I could continue Owen's study on them if you want. I doubt you had someone to look after the researches in these years."

Jack pushed his lover away playfully and helped him restrain the Weevil.

"Instead of thinking about finding yourself more work, why don't you look at the fun of it? First pterodactyl date and we came back with a pterodactyl, first Weevil date and we came back with a Weevil."

"Kids before marriage, shame on you captain Jack Harkness." Ianto teased him, shaking his head gravely.

"A boy and a girl sounds ideal though, doesn't it?" Jack said, laughing.

"Thought you didn't do kids anymore?"

"Well…" Jack told him as he leaned over Ianto to steal a peck on his boyfriend lips in front of the hissing alien. "Who knows what the future will bring? And anyway I'm not against alien pets, they make life less boring."

They secured the Weevil inside the SUV and then drove back to the hub. As soon as they entered with their prey though, they noticed a stranger in a bowtie glaring at them, sitting quietly on a chair in front of the water tower.

Still keeping a hand each on the Weevil, they both reached for their guns and pointed them at the intruder.

"Who the hell are you and how did you get inside!?" Jack asked sternly.

The newcomer simply stared back at him without even flinching.

"Bad bad ape." He drawled, playing with his sonic screwdriver.

The tension left suddenly Jack's shoulders as he lowered his gun.

"Doctor?"

At those words Ianto lowered his gun too, but only to stare suspiciously at Jack.

"How the hell are you dressed up, now?" Jack asked disappointed as he took in the bowtie and the heartbreaking absence of a suit.

"Uh? You like it?" The Doctor asked happily, sitting up a little bit more straight and forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be mad at Jack. "Bowties are cool aren't they?"

Jack and Ianto gave him a second measuring glance and then they both grimaced at the tastelessness of the ensemble.

"Oh yeah, the only thing that could make it worse would be a fez." Ianto deadpanned, gaining a pout and an offended stare from the Doctor.

"I don't like you. And how are old are you anyway? Dressed up like a crossed _mid-aged_ know-it-all mature…" He gesticulated confusedly as he thought about a proper retort. "_old man_."

Ianto simply stared at him, completely uncaring. "I'm twenty-six, so it's expected from me to dress decently. At least I'm not a over nine hundred years old crossed half-mad _old alien_ who likes to dress like a _five years old_ without fashion taste, just because he can't bear-"

"Ianto?" Jack interrupted him, tentatively tapping his boyfriend's shoulder. "I-I don't think we should cross the Doctor, no matter how much I like hearing your velvety voice."

The Doctor, who was still pouting offended at Ianto, suddenly was all smiling widely at Jack.

"I like you!"

"That's a new one." Jack said, crooking his eyebrow in disbelief.

The Doctor thought about the reason why Jack wouldn't be keen believing him, until it finally clicked.

"Oh, yeah. Back then. Well new me new likes, I guess. This new me likes you! Strange, because I actually shouldn't. However, despite what you've done- might have done, I keep liking you anyway. You wear braces!"

"I'll be back in a minute." Ianto muttered, glaring suspiciously at the Doctor and fearing a new rebounding of the two friends over the braces while he took Bred to the vaults. He wouldn't put a bet on it, but he was relatively sure that the Weevil was all too pleased himself to leave the duo.

Back to Jack, he somehow guessed that Ianto's actions were actually a code for '_Get rid of him_'.

"So" The Doctor began conversationally, as soon as they were alone. "Who did you sell your soul to in order to have the grumpy thing back?"

"He's not grumpy, he just loves me much more than I deserve. Besides, his coming back to life seemed to be a gift." Jack retorted outraged, crossing his hands over his chest. "Some friends _do_ bend the rules of time and space despite the implications."

The Doctor had left him behind, insulted him, barely thanked him when he proved to be actually useful, left him alone to lose his whole life thanks to the 456, offered him a night of meaningless sex with a space sailor thinking he could be back to his old carefree self just like that, and now he also dared to accuse him of something he had no hand in when he finally had the love of his life back.

There was actually no surprise that Ianto was furious, if he didn't still consider the Doctor his friend, he would be too.

"A gift?" The Doctor asked, sincerely curious. "From who?"

"No clue."

"Then how do you know?"

"Another Ianto came here from the future three months ago, didn't you pick that up? You're supposed to know everything." Jack teased.

"What did he said _precisely_?" The Doctor asked while ignoring him, his voice almost clinical under the light coating of deadly curiosity.

Unfortunately Jack was beginning to get sick of his friend's continuous asking without any sign of actual concern or affection. It had been years since they last saw each other and there hadn't been a single thing the Doctor had done or said to show he had missed him.

"I have no idea, he erased my memory!" Jack cried out, his mouth twisting in hurt. "Ask Gwen when she's in tomorrow if that's so important for you! Geez, I'm here at a loss dealing with this damn immortality thing and now that something good actually happens, you're ready to take it away from me! I thought we were friends!"

The two men stared at one another for a long time, studying each other carefully. The moment Ianto got back from the vaults and saw them like this, he quickly run at Jack's side, trying to offer him moral support in front of analytic stare of the Time Lord, who looked at Ianto and then back to Jack a couple of more times as his angry frown slowly left space to a surprised one.

"You don't know." He said as he took a couple more steps towards them.

"What?" The two lovers said together.

"You both don't know." He pointed out cryptically, his gaze still switching from Jack to Ianto.

"What d'you mean?" Jack tried again, this time grasping tightly Ianto's shoulder to draw him closer.

The Doctor turned his back to them and went to get his device. He threw it a couple of times in the air, flashed it here and there with his sonic screwdriver and pick poked it a bit.

"I'm sorry Jack, I thought you were hopping around making new immortals on a whim, but I guess I was totally wrong. So sad being wrong, so very sad. I never like it when it happens."

Much to the Doctor's dismay, Jack and Ianto lost the best part of his childish gibberish as their heart plainly stopped in their chests as soon as they heard the words '_new immortals_'.

"Doctor, what do you mean?" Jack asked again, the very picture of panic, but the Doctor simply kept tinkering.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I SAID!" He screamed, this time taking the Time Lord's shoulders and making him focus on him by force.

"He cannot be like me!" Jack's plead earned him a sad pout from his friend, who finally realised that he could not keep the matter suspended until the device had finished its work and could give him more detailed answers. He had failed the captain too many times only because he had overestimated the man's ability to adapt, Jack really didn't deserve such a treatment anymore.

He freed himself from Jack's grip and scanned Ianto with his screwdriver as professionally as he could get.

"He's not as a fixed point in time as you are, Jack, but he still is something like… half of it? Maybe a little more than a half… 75% maybe. A little less depending on how much time flux we're considering."

"What's the difference?" Jack asked, completely confused.

"You will lose him again, Jackey-boy. I'm sorry." Both Jack and Ianto had to swallow at that.

"But it won't be as soon as you thought." He continued happily, hoping to cheer them up. "You have more than half a forever to stay together. This is good, Jackey! Aren't you happy, Grumpy Pants?"

"But- How can it be possible?" Ianto asked puzzled, trying to rationalize things in order to escape the shock of the revelation. "What if someone kills me? Will I come back like Jack?"

The Doctor stared at him, his jaw dropping in surprise.

"Smart boy you've here, Jackey. Good choice, I like him. Now. As in _for the moment_. You know, I have no idea."

He lowered his eyes and tapped absentmindedly his temple with a finger, still deep in thoughts.

"You must be if you're substantially fixed, there's no other chance… But why!? Jack can because of the-… Oh."

Two pair of blue eyes stared open wide at him, trying to follow his convulse trail of thoughts and failing at it.

"Ianto, isn't it?" The Doctor said to get his attention. "Weird name by the way."

Ianto simply grimaced as he faked a too wide smile. "Says the man called after a job."

The Doctor ignored his protests, taking them as the yes he wanted it to be.

"What do you remember of the moment you came back to life, what did you feel?"

"Pain… Like walking on broken glass. Twice. In the middle there was just darkness and… Sort of worms crawling around me."

"Worms aside is more or less what I do feel myself." Jack considered wearily.

Ianto looked at his boyfriend and patted his arm reassuringly. Jack smiled back at him and took his hand, drawing him closer as he tenderly nudged his head.

"I have a theory truth to be told. That would explain differences and similarities." The Doctor explained, failing miserably at keeping the seriously concerned face he was supposed to because of all the excitement. "I think you died twice."

"What!?" They asked in chorus.

"My theory," The Doctor continued, walking around them and gesturing in their direction. "Is that as soon as the energy got you, you came back to life. But no one knew the precise hour, so I guess that it took you some time to reach the graveyard?"

He stopped abruptly, fixing his eyes expectantly on Jack.

"About half an hour," The captain confirmed, not understanding why this particular was so important. "Future Ianto said he was going to come back, but he never said how, so we thought it safer to stay at the base with all the devices set on tracking down something unusual."

"UNIT have a closer base in the area thought." The Doctor continued, like he had barely heard Jack. "Let's say… fifteen minutes tops? But when they got there everything was dead. Again."

The couple shrugged, still staring wide-eyed at the Doctor, who sometimes kept snatching glances at them to check if they were understanding where all this was going.

"I think," The Time Lord kept on, this time staring directly into Ianto's eyes. "That the shock of coming back, the pain from your half decomposed body and the limited stale air around you did you in before UNIT came. Then they got away, Jack came and you revived again. Probably in the minutes in between your body must have healed, because you look pretty good to me for a four year decomposing corpse, especially if you take into consideration how the hair and nails keep growing for a while after death but you don't look like cousin It."

Ianto swallowed and felt all his strength vanish as his head lightened, but Jack was quick and got him before he fell, fainted, on the floor. He picked him up in his arms and then gently took him to the sofa.

"Ianto? Ianto, how are you? Do you want a glass of water?" Jack cooed worriedly, giving him light slaps on his cheek to wake him up. Ianto eventually nodded, still confused, and the captain vanished in the kitchen corner to get him a drink.

While messing around in the kitchenette to find a glass, he nevertheless kept his glare fixed on the Doctor.

"Your bedside manners are way more rubbish than mine!"

The Doctor stared completely surprised at Jack's anger and Ianto's distress.

"I thought you were '_mighty Torchwood_'," He argued, sincerely worried even though some displeasure slightly marked his voice for not getting any kind of praise for his extremely cool diagnosis. "And he experienced you! He's supposed to be used to things like these."

"Does he look _used to things like these_ to you!?" Jack cried from upstairs, finally finding a glass. "Think about how to reverse this mess instead!"

As soon as he accepted that matters were a little bit more complicate than he thought for the Welshman, the Doctor gravitated in front of him with no idea on how to solve the situation. Somehow the displeased pout on his lips didn't make Ianto feel any better.

"I'm sorry, I can't reverse it."

Ianto nodded half-heartedly, but the Doctor smiled at him cheerfully, patting him on the shoulder in a forced friendly way.

"C'mon! You won't be alone and you won't leave Jacketty-Jack alone for a long time. Aren't you happy?"

Instead of making Ianto happy though, the Doctor's words simply threw new blades in his heart.

"What if he wants to?" Ianto asked the Doctor worriedly, making him stare back at him with both his eyebrows rose up in confusion.

"I would never." Jack cut in before the Time Lord could speak, offering Ianto the glass of cold water he had gone fetching. "I love you, Ianto, and even though I would never wish this immortal life upon my worst enemy, now that you have it… if you chose to spend it with me, I won't even be scared about the implications, because now I know what life is without you and I don't want it again. It's all up to you."

Ianto threw his arms around Jack's waist, almost knocking out the glass of water in the process.

"I love you too. And I _am_ scared, but I'm also glad you're not alone anymore, even if it means I'm condemned forever." Ianto tried to smile at him. "At least now you can't say I won't understand."

"I'm not happy with this either, you know?" Jack said holding him tight. "What will happen when you'll see Gwen dying? When you will see Rhiannon, Mica, David, Anwen and all the other people we know and will know? Your heart will break."

"Then we run away together?"

Ianto looked up at him with hopeful yet scared eyes, his lips a tight line. Jack knew that nothing was going to help, so he stick with the physical demonstrations of love that always served them right, and held him to his heart.

He knew that he was being egoistical to feel so good deep inside himself when his lover's life had been tore apart like that, but if he could protect this thing they had for this half of forever they had together, maybe this double curse could really turn out a nice gift like Future Ianto had predicted.

**X**

**A/N: **Christmas one-shot is coming!


End file.
